


like sleeves, like limbs

by evocates



Series: a guide on (dis)honouring your deities [1]
Category: Sān guó yǎn yì | Romance of the Three Kingdoms - All Media Types, 關雲長ㅣThe Lost Bladesman (2011)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate History, Anachronistic, Changes in Anatomy due to A/B/O 'verse, Chinese Culture, Chinese History - Freeform, Gender Roles, Look I have sunk to the bottom of the earth a long time ago, M/M, Mpreg, Pregnant Sex, Your judgment will not touch me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-02 04:56:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 36,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10937451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/pseuds/evocates
Summary: Guan Yu was a lie; Guan Yu did not exist. There was only Yunchang, little more than the shell of a body that did not fit and could not be. Honour and duty had caged him but he had never once cast himself into full-dark; his hands were wrapped around the bars, imprinting the feel of their solidity to his bones even as he stared outside.This was what he knew: Cao Cao wanted Guan Yu, for the warrior was a useful chess piece. Only Guan Yu’s wings were considered beautiful enough that, when torn and dried, they were considered worthy enough to decorate the web that the spider constantly wove.They said: omegas are best as concubines, rarely worthy of being wives. They said: bodies like theirs belong far from the battlefield.Guan Yunchang held honour and duty and pride close and tight, and so knew extent of his lies. Cao Mengde, however, understood the vulnerability of ink, and how water could wear through even the strongest stone.Subtitled: “A Treatise on Confucian Gender Roles Using ABO and Porn.”Complete.





	1. 习礼仪, “the practice of etiquette”

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chuchisushi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chuchisushi/gifts).



> Again, regarding names: people don’t call each other by their given names alone (i.e. Cao Cao is never ‘Cao’ and Guan Yu is never ‘Yu’.) Family and friends use courtesy names instead. Cao Cao’s courtesy name is 孟德 Mengde, and Guan Yu’s is 云长 Yunchang. 
> 
> Guan Yu here doesn’t have his long beard. He doesn’t have facial hair at all, actually. Think of how Donnie looked as [Long Sky](http://imgur.com/a/9H9NW) in _Hero_. Unlike in [_the table turns cold_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10782963), that is now a minor plot point.  
>  **  
> **  
> Worldbuilding based on[chuchisushi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chuchisushi)’s ideas about ABO, in which she simultaneously erased the biological impossibility, made the consent issues less iffy, and also made it really interesting culturally to think about. Salient points:  
>  1) Secondary sex/hierarchy is entirely uncertain from birth for betas and omegas, and people are sure only during puberty, in which betas drop their balls and omegas don't;  
> 2) Heat only comes when an omega or beta meets a compatible Alpha or beta, and, more importantly, they are in a place that is _safe_ (which means that if the Alpha is not considered safe, there’s no heat);  
> 3) Heat also has a prelude called ‘pre-heat,’ in which the omega’s body prepares for the exertion of heat; this can be skipped through drugs that induce heat;  
> 4) Pre-heats and heats can be broken through when the situation suddenly turns less and ideal, and the symptoms are pretty much PMS and periods with migraines, cramps, and sometimes even down to fevers and seizures;  
> 5) Betas and omegas only release their eggs when they're knotted because the stretch induces hormones (hence no one has periods);  
> 6) Everyone is physically intersexed, though the way their sexual organs have different purposes and different manifestations. In other words, every single person has a cock and a vagina (with its attached labia). That part is important.
> 
> (Once I declared that I will not write balls-less sex in the Forbidden City. Look, this is not Forbidden City, but.) 
> 
> All chapter titles are directly lifted from the 三字经, the three-characters classic. I am nerd, hear me roar.
> 
>  **Warnings:** Too many Chinese references and exploration of Confucian gender roles. Anachronisms all over the place because I love references and also the film itself is anachronistic in its language anyway so fuck it.
> 
> Also, I watched _The Lost Bladesman_ the first time without subs, the second time with dual subs in which I paid attention only to the Chinese, and the copy I have only have Chinese subs. Any lines I take from the movie will be different from the usual subs because I translated them myself.
> 
> Beta’d by [jonphaedrus](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus), who is a gem, instead of my darling [kikibug13](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13), who does the beta-ing for my non-TLB stuff.

“My lord.”

The monk stood in front of him, his head lowered and his hands clasped together tight enough for the white of bones to show through thin skin. Mengde’s eyes narrowed from above the sleeve pressed against his nose – a useless precaution – as his mind scrambled to remember the man’s name.

“Lord Cao,” the monk continued. “With your actions, you have brought peace and prosperity to the people of Luoyang. You have done a great service to the common people of the world.”

“Have I?” Mengde asked, the sardonic twist in his words loud enough to ring above the quiet, ragged panting that was coming through the door. “Is that why you stand here?”

“Yes, my lord.” _Pujing_ , Mengde’s mind suddenly recalled. His name was Pujing, and he had only recently introduced himself. “I stand here now for I know you to be an honourable man capable of great deeds, and I hope your compassion will grant me the permission to speak freely.”

Mengde lowered his sleeve. The scent hit him immediately, stronger than before – clean, fresh water; the scent of a waterfall’s spray twining with that of spring-young leaves – and he dragged in a long, shuddering breath through his teeth.

“Speak.”

“Thank you,” Pujing said. Raising his head, his eyes met Mengde’s with the edges creased. “You must remember, sir, that the old precepts speak that we create our own heaven and hell upon this Earth. Here,” he swept out one arm, “you have created a heaven, and we thank you greatly for it. However…”

Behind Pujing, behind that flimsy wood and paper door, he could hear the sound of a gasping whine rising, rising. Rains pouring down onto the mountain tops to feed the springs, waters rushing and rushing down to the Yellow River to set it roaring. 

“You risk creating your own hell, my lord, if you desire too much.”

_Ah_.

“Those are bold words,” Mengde said. His voice managed – barely – to remain steady despite the boiling water that scalded his nerves. “But I believe that they come far too late.”

He made to step forward, but the monk sidled up closer against the door. His knuckles, Mengde noticed, stood out even starker.

“Please, my lord,” Pujing said, and there was a glint within his eyes that shouted sincerity. “Do not forget your compassionate heart.” 

From behind the doors: a moan that twisted in the air, transmogrifying into daggers to drive themselves between Mengde’s ribs. A half-whisper of his name, barely audible even through ears sharpened by the air’s thinning.

Lowering his head, Mengde threw back his sleeves, and placed his hands together: palms flat, fingers pointed skywards, in the gesture of worship.

“I will not,” he said. He inhaled, and grasped tight the growl in his throat and turned it into a laugh that was far too raspy. “I thank you for your teachings.”

Pujing looked at him for long moments. But whatever the monk was looking for in Mengde’s eyes, he seemed to have found it, for he nodded once – sharp and soldier-like – before he moved aside. The path to the door was clear. Mengde took one step forward. He splayed his hand over the paper and wood, and lidded his eyes. This close, the scent of water was nearly overwhelming. To drown in sweetness…

Mengde reached behind himself. He loosened the strap of his broadsword, and gripped onto its hilt. Turning, he set the tip against the floor, and allowed the sheathed blade to fall. Winds caught the heavy _thump_ it made, carrying it through to rustle the leaves. Behind him, the whispers ceased. 

He placed his other hand against the door, and pushed it open.

Liu Bei’s concubine knelt at the foot of the bed, her feet tucked underneath her and the rough cotton of her robes tangled at the knees. As Mengde closed the door behind him, she lowered her body until her forehead touched the floor, her hands framing her head.

“My lord,” she said. “Please.”

Cocking his head to the side, Mengde considered her for a long moment. “He calls for me,” he pointed out. “Do you not feel it?”

Scraping nails on silk. Enough for to make the bamboo mat beneath shriek in protest. The woman flinched. What was her name again? Like a flower… Qilan, wasn’t it? 

“He will not be what you expect,” she said. Her voice trembled, but her hands were still flat upon the floor; there was steel to be found in that willow-carved spine, after all. “He is… My lord, he is like me.”

“ _That_ ,” Mengde took another step forward, the cloth soles of his shoe slapping against the ground, “is already obvious.”

“No,” Qilan said. She raised her head. Her face caught the slice of sunshine that came through the open slat of the windows. “He did not… I…” She bit her lip, and shook her head. Mengde’s hands started to curl at his sides. There was only so much patience that he could spare for the inconsequential.

“Er-ge did not know,” she said. Her nails were trying to drive into the wooden floorboards of the room as she stared at him, eyes wide and filled with tears. “Please, my lord. _He did not know_.”

How could a man not know his own body? Mengde closed his eyes, and bit back a sigh. The answer was obvious: when he did not wish to see.

“Think of me as a villain if you must, ma’am,” he said, inclining his head at her in the precise angle that a fellow warlord’s wife required; a respect that exceeded her true rank. “But he calls to me now, and I…”

A bitten, choked-off cry: Mengde’s name, mangled by want.

“My hands are roughed by brush and sword, but they know well the curves and fragility of precious jade.” He cocked his head to the side. “But you, ma’am… in my eyes, you are naught but ceramic.”

To her credit, confusion lingered in her eyes for only a few seconds. Then she was scrambling to her feet, body still bent into a bow.

“Please,” she said again, but Mengde only waved an arm at her, eyes fixed upon the closed curtains that hid the bed from sight. He hissed another breath through his teeth as he waited for the door to open and close again; for the sound of her intrusive footsteps to fade. Then he conquered the final small distance. His fingers tangled around the thin silk of the curtains – upon which was printed images of horses running alongside wolves – before he pulled them open.

Yunchang laid on the bed. His long hair, dishevelled and released from the cord that usually tied it back, sprawled upon the pale gold silk of the sheets. He was dressed only in a thin cotton robe – the rest of his clothes were tucked to the side of the bed, neatly folded; Qilan’s work, surely – and the hem had ridden up to his thighs. His skin gleamed with sweat, the colour stark against the darker glow of the bamboo mat peeking from beneath the sheets.

His eyes opened. They were shadows woven into the night sky, with threads of need that glimmered brighter than stars. 

“Cao… Mengde…” he gasped.

Mengde pulled the ties of his outer robes open. He swept off the heavy cloth, and laid it over that tremulous body. Yunchang gasped again at the touch of the cloth, at Mengde’s scent that surely filled his nose, and Mengde smiled.

He set a knee against the mat, and kicked off his shoes. He crawled onto the bed, and took Yunchang’s face with both hands.

“I am here,” he said, and took that red, wet mouth that invited him with the coiling, desiring smoke it had made with his name.

***

Cao Cao held the chopsticks out towards him, the back turned towards himself and the tapered tips tucked away. The angle of his wrist was exactly the same as that when he offered water in the fields; when he offered him food before the battle. His eyes…

The Emperor said: _Do you know what Cao Cao brought me, the first time we met? Steamed white buns, and hot meat soup_.

Yunchang’s hands closed around the chopsticks – they weighed light, and were finely balanced – but he did not turn towards the food even as Cao Cao swept out his hand.

“Do you always make a habit of trying to win a man over through food and drink?”

Flinging his sleeves back, Cao Cao laughed. The sound rumbled from the base of his throat. “Ying Zhen won the empire through providing folks with food and water,” he said. His head tilted towards the direction of the wine jug. “In providing wine instead, have I been uncouth?”

“The Great King won for he had the mandate of heaven,” Yunchang pointed out. He carefully released the tight grip he had on the chopsticks.

Smiling out of the corner of his mouth, Cao Cao shrugged. “So he did,” he said. “But common people’s acceptance of his rule, Yunchang-xiong, had naught to do with his seal, and all with the prosperity that fell from his hand.”

“To win the heart of common people,” Yunchang said, enunciating each word for he could barely believe what he was hearing, “is to win the empire?”

Cao Cao laughed again. “What empire remains when you take the common people away?” He picked up the dish of wine, and held it towards Yunchang. “Only lords and soldiers, Yunchang-xiong, and those are as worthless as honour when one is without food.” 

“That,” Yunchang said, using the chopsticks to point at Cao Cao in lieu of his glaive or a sword, “is blasphemy.”

“Or is it mere truth?” Cao Cao cocked his head again. His hair was tied back so tightly, Yunchang noticed, that no strands were left free to cut the strikingly jagged light of his eyes. 

“It is honour for a ruler to rule fairly,” Yunchang said, “and to rule _fairly_ is to provide and to not go into unnecessary war.” He placed the chopsticks down, the tip of his finger against the edges of the wood so they would not make sound when touching the ceramic plates. “Yet now you say that to win battles – to carve out a time of war where the people would starve and die – is to do the same as to feed them.”

“You misunderstand me,” Cao Cao said. He placed his wine dish back on the table, ceramic clacking sharp-soft against the wood. “I do not mean that to wage battles is the same as to bring prosperity. Only that each party in a war think themselves the best to provide for the people.”

Yunchang opened his mouth, and then closed it. He had never, he realised, asked his elder brother why it was that he waged war against the throne. There was need, he knew, for the current dynasty was ruled by despots, and the people were suffering.

But was it? Were they? He shook his head, hard.

“What of honour?” he demanded. “Do you truly believe that honour is worthless?”

“I believe that honour is the greatest ideal anyone could reach,” Cao Cao told him. He shook his sleeves out, and held out a hand with the palm up. “I believe that it is the duty of rulers, Yunchang-xiong, to give all those beneath them the space to act with honour.” His lips curved up further, showing a hint of teeth. “Without need for them to tear out any part of themselves.” 

“Where they would not have to choose between food on the table for themselves and their family, and the principles that had woven into their hearts.”

It took a moment before Yunchang understood the gesture. He placed the chopsticks onto Cao Cao’s palm, blinking at him blearily. There was a strange sort of ringing in his head, and his heart was suddenly thundering too quickly in his chest.

He groped on the table for the wine dish, and drained it all in one long gulp. When Cao Cao returned, placing a new pair of chopsticks by Yunchang’s hand and refilling his dish from the jug, he stared at the man.

“I am but a lowly soldier, peasant-born and bred.” His voice was hoarse; he cleared it. “You need not show such servility.”

“My servility is but a poor facsimile of civility,” Cao Cao countered. He folded his hands into his sleeves, and inclined his head to Yunchang in a manner that did not benefit a lord to a soldier. “So you will not remember the other reason why I might have gifted you with water and rice and wine.”

Yunchang looked at him, blinking, and Cao Cao laughed before he took one step closer. He held out his hand again, and this time, Yunchang was not thinking when he rested his own into that broad, wide palm.

Calluses on the thumb, stroking along the lines. Yunchang only had a moment to feel before Cao Cao took yet another step, until his body was close enough for Yunchang to feel the coiling heat that emanated from him. For Yunchang to _smell_ him.

Like smoke, he thought. Like smoke from the raided villages, the heavy taste of ash soured by screams— no. No, that was memory, not reality.

Cao Cao on the tip of his tongue: wood-smoke, and the dizzying burn of metal thrust deep inside a furnace’s blazing heat. Melted silver, a running river. A thumb ran over the fragile bones of his wrist, and Cao Cao made a sound – half-laugh, half-growl; deep enough to make the air shake.

Words coalesced in Yunchang’s mind, like the slow gathering of mist: _Alphas, too, must provide_.

“You lower yourself needlessly.” Yunchang heard his own voice coming from far away. “For did Confucius not say: one like you is born with strength of frame and swiftness of mind, and within your blood runs the steel that could withstand the weight of leadership.”

There were more Confucius had written; more Yunchang now could not remember but knew they were all true. Was this not what this conversation was about? How an Alpha – head of household, head of kingdom – could provide for his people?

The Emperor was an Alpha, seated so upon the throne by the mandate of heaven with the power granted to him by both the gods’ will and his parents’ blood. The leaders of all sides of this rampaging conflict in the world were all Alphas, and their Generals as well. Yunchang himself, a beta, was given his rank by his elder brother’s grace, and the loyalty he had sworn to him.

Perhaps Cao Cao had misread him to be one. Yet if he did, why would he treat him this way?

Heat. Heat crawling up the back of his neck. Precepts, inked on paper, turned into nothing but mud and ash-water that slipped from his hands. His older brother’s figure made into twisting shadow, impossible to capture. Yunchang dragged in a breath, clawing at some sort of equilibrium, and barely managed to meet Cao Cao’s eyes.

“Do you know,” Cao Cao said, “you are not the first guest I’ve had to partake in my wine?” 

“Who was…”

Hoarse, so hoarse, his own voice. His head spun like he had replaced his blood with the wine from the jug, though he had barely drunk any. He was surrounded by the smell of smoke; a physical weight upon his neck, a line of fire down his spine that pooled in the vicinity of his hips. As if the smoke on Cao Cao’s skin was but a trail leading back to the fire that had ignited within Yunchang’s own body.

He licked his lips. “Who was the first?”

“Confucius’s descendent,” Cao Cao said.

“Really?”

“Yes.” Abruptly, Cao Cao let go of Yunchang’s wrist, and stepped back. “The old man taught the kingdom to give away their pears, but if you ask his grandson for his wine…” Cao Cao chuckled. “He would not give a single drop.”

Like every single word Cao Cao spoke, that sentence carried a double meaning. Yunchang knew this. However, he could not even think of what it might _be_. “I…”

Cao Cao’s hand on his wrist once more. The cool wood of chopsticks; the rough rasp of fingertips. Yunchang dragged in a breath, and forced his spine to straighten.

“Eat,” Cao Cao said.

Yunchang took the bowl, and lifted food into his mouth. His memories of Hedong’s spices had faded into unfamiliar in the long decade since he had left, and they were no shield for the burn they made on his tongue. 

His hands shook when he reached for the wine. Cao Cao’s fingers wrapped around his, warm and steady. Shadows writ into the lines at the corners of his eyes as he helped lift the dish to Yunchang’s lips; not mockery, but mirth-shaped in ways Yunchang could not craft into words to describe. Flames licked the inside of his body. Smoke surrounded him, the scent shifting with every breath: oak-smoke and cherry-smoke, heavy to light, bitter to sweet.

“You,” he heard Cao Cao say, his voice no more than coiling wisps that ghosted across Yunchang’s ears. “Guan Yunchang, you surprise me.”

* 

The door closed behind him, wood and paper rattling with the force with which he had slammed it. Yunchang squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his face against the frame. Slowly, he slid to his knees.

Cao Cao’s touch on his shoulder lingered like a brand upon his skin. The solidity of his chest engraved into Yunchang’s hands, replacing the life lines previously etched there; a reminder of his foolishness. 

He had not imbibed much tonight, but even if he did, he knew this was not the result of too much indulgence in drink. There was a strange, coiling heat below his hips, centring between his thighs. Every step taken beside Cao Cao had sent sparks, like the scent of smoke on Cao Cao’s skin contained flames, jabbing straight into his spine, moving downwards to burst into being within… He sank his teeth into his lip.

Within— He would not finish that sentence. He _could_ not. If he put into words his body’s betrayal, he would make it real.

Tipping his head back, he took a long, deep breath. His eyes stared upwards at the flickering shadows on the ceiling; the way they danced across the slats of wood. Gritting his teeth until his jaw ached, he pulled his feet forward until they were flat on the ground. He rocked his head backwards, swallowing a cry as the brush of his thighs together sent heat shooting up his spine.

Cao Cao’s shadow on the door. The strength of his hands: well-formed bones that surely would wrap perfectly around the broadsword he always had slung behind his back. The warmth of his skin. The deep, rocking rumble of his voice.

“Er-ge?” 

Yunchang’s eyes snapped open. The door rattled behind his back as he threw his body back against it. 

No one. The room seemed empty. But he had heard Qilan’s voice. He had… Stumbling forward, Yunchang headed for the bed. His fingers tangled in the curtains, and he pulled it back.

The sight that met him was akin to dipping into the river after fending off a village raid: Qilan lying on blood-red sheets, her hands flat by the side. Her eyes were wide open, her lips parted; the sounds of her panting twisted sharp and heavy in the air.

Cao Cao’s words: _I have sent Liu Bei’s family back to him, with fifty soldiers to guard them_. Qilan, not yet officially wed: did he not consider her family? Did Cao Cao not consider Yunchang himself, his blood spilled upon the same ground as Liu Bei’s, to be family as well?

“Sao-zi,” Yunchang whispered. 

Her skin glowed beneath the light from the flickering candle that was set beside the bed. She had been dressed in blue silk the colour of the sky, and Yunchang knew she was beautiful. Beautiful enough to draw the eyes of almost every Alpha to walk past; beautiful enough to tug on the strings of the group of beta soldiers who had tried to haunt her family’s doorsteps. But all he could see of her now was panic and pain. He watched, struck dumb, as her fingers curled until nails were scraping against the sheets.

“Er-ge,” Qilan called again. Her voice was twisted deep in her throat, and a slow flush was creeping up her cheeks.

Yunchang had never the honour to see this in person, but he knew what it was: an omega’s heat, rapidly approaching. They had drugged her, induced her heat, and placed her here, on his bed.

Cao Cao’s shadow hovering at the edge of his vision. The ache of his hips, snaking between his thighs, at the memory of hilt-rough calluses stroking over the thin skin of his wrists.

There was no room left in his chest for breath. Still, he wanted to laugh.

“Sao-zi,” Yunchang warned. He reached out with both hands, slipping one arm beneath her shoulders and the other between her knees, before he lifted her from the bed. Ducking his head down, he stood, and headed over to the wide chairs.

He sat down, then settled her in his lap, gently shifting her hands until one was on his shoulder and the other around his waist. He placed one of his hands upon the nape of her neck, urging gently, and she made a high-pitched, pained sound before she pressed her face into his shoulder. The other hand he splayed upon her back, drawing circles along the lines of her ribs.

The youth of those years long past would have killed for such an opportunity. That boy he used to be would have jumped at this opportunity to prove himself dutiful to the farmer parents who had so desperately needed to not have the burden of another dowry to pay. The youth who watched her from beyond the fence – her, Qilan, the most beautiful omega of the village with moon-pale skin and night-dark hair – and watched her because she would mean something.

Yunchang had learned his true place since then: he was a soldier; he was a beta; and honour and duty meant far more than any comfort he might find within his skin.

Qilan was trembling again, her hand gripping tight against the shoulder of his robes. Yunchang sank his fingers into her hair, loosening the cord before he shifted the tie upwards and knotted it again. Like this, he could move Qilan’s hair away from her neck, where she was sweating.

“It’s alright,” he promised. “Sao-zi, I will not touch you. I will not behave dishonourably.”

A ragged breath against his throat. Qilan lifted her head up. Her pupils were blown wide, and terribly dark. Her fingertips trembled as she raised them to Yunchang’s cheek, hovering an inch away from his skin.

“I’ve suspected,” she said. “But now… Er-ge… are you…”

Her skin should be blazing, but he felt nothing. He smiled, and turned away from her searching gaze. “I am a soldier,” he told her. “I am your husband’s brother.”

She parted her lips as if to speak, but then pressed her hand suddenly against her mouth. Yunchang brushed his hand over her forehead.

“You’re burning up,” he said, and knew he must move her back to the bed. The discomfort he felt at seeing her there, amidst everything that Cao Cao had given him for his stay, should not matter more than her needs right at the moment. 

It was Cao Cao who had drugged her; Cao Cao who had made a move towards his family. There were needles prickling at him where there used to be heat, and a fist closing around his chest.

None of that mattered at the moment. Qilan’s comfort mattered more; it was his duty as her brother, and his honour to serve.

He was making to move when his instincts _shrieked_. His eyes snapped to the ceiling, and in that moment, he swung Qilan off of his lap and onto the wide seat, squeezing her arm – the only place he could reach – in apology. Then he reached out and grabbed the nearest item he could reach – a teapot – and flung it towards the flickering shadows he could see.

A man fell through the wooden slats, dressed in black. Yunchang vaulted over the chair and rushed towards him. He grabbed the man with one hand bunched into the collar of his robes, twisting the cloth and lifting him up. The assassin choked, and Yunchang pressed his advantage, raising his knee to slam it into the soft parts of the man’s stomach. He ignored the pain that flared in his hips, the flames there flickering against his nerves, and snarled:

“Who sent you?”

“It was Lord Liu who sent me,” the man gasped out. “He is now in Ruyang, surrounded by Yuan Shao’s men.”

Metal clinked against metal as the man unsheathed his knife. Without thinking, Yunchang switched the hands holding the man up, gripping the wrist that threatened to bring the naked blade to his throat.

“General Guan,” his elder brother’s loyal soldier gritted out through his teeth, “this small life… cannot be spared. General Guan—”

He should do something. He should stop him.

“General Guan—”

But Cao Cao’s shadow flickered upon the walls. Cao Cao’s shadow overlaying Qilan’s figure as she seized on the chair, feet slamming against the wood, making it rattle.

Blade sank into flesh. Yunchang’s hand slackened despite himself, and he watched, frozen, as the man slid down to the ground. 

He had stabbed his own heart. He was dead.

The door rattling. Voices; Cao Cao’s shadow made into flesh, approaching. Yunchang knelt, and closed the loyal soldier’s eyes. He did not even know the man’s name. 

Yunchang had been a fool. Oak-smoke and cherry-smoke, Cao Cao’s fire or his own; what was the difference, in the end? All he was left with was the sting behind his own eyes, and the shaking of his hands.

Standing, he ignored the manifestations of Cao Cao’s will who waited at the doorway. He returned to Qilan instead, scooping her back up into his arms. He returned her to the bed, wrapping her up in the sheets he had slept in the last few nights; the sheets that Cao Cao had given him, along with the room.

He pulled the curtains closed. It would not shut out the sounds of her pain, he knew, but he hoped it would retain some of her dignity.

With his back still upon those warriors, Yunchang took a deep breath. The flames underneath his skin had died, replaced by an abyss colder than a mountain’s caves, colder than the roaring winds in a midwinter snowstorm.

“I seek,” he said, taking caution to steady his voice, “an audience with Cao Cao.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Ying Zhen won his battles, and thus the empire” is actually a pun based upon Guan Yu’s question. The Chinese word for ‘win’ is 赢, and Ying Zhen’s name is 赢政, literally “to win battles.” In Chinese, the line goes like this: 用粮和水, 嬴政赢国 in which the first two characters of the second clause represent both the guy and winning battles. Ying Zhen is the name of the Qin Emperor, i.e. the very first Emperor of China; the guy who created ‘China’ out of a bunch of disparate communities. (Jiang Wen plays him in _The Emperor’s Shadow_.)
> 
> Yunchang-xiong: 云长兄, literally translated to “Brother Yunchang,” but with many other meanings. Cao Cao is referring to Guan Yu as a brother-in-arms, and also a sworn brother, and also by his address trying to overwrite Guan Yu’s sworn brotherhood with Liu Bei.
> 
> Er-ge; sao-zi: 二哥, meaning ‘second (elder) brother,’ and is the term that Qilan used for Guan Yu throughout the movie; 嫂子, an affectionate term for your elder brother’s wife, and is the term that Guan Yu used for Qilan throughout the movie. Not only is their relationship in the movie forbidden because she is Liu Bei’s concubine, it is forbidden because it is incestuous by Chinese standards.


	2. 与丝竹, “and silk, and bamboo"

“You have laid your robes over me,” Yunchang said. “Are you not afraid of the stains?”

Only a man as conscientious as Guan Yunchang would concern himself with such things when he was trembling so with need, Mengde thought; helplessly amused, helplessly enamoured. He cupped Yunchang’s cheek, running his thumb down the smooth jaw where he could not feel the first prickling of stubble even though it had been days, surely, since Yunchang could wrap his hands around a shaving blade.

“This is but cotton,” Mengde said. “Even if I had my court robes with me, I would lay it over your body as well.” His hand slid down, tugging away the black collar of his own robes to reveal another flash of Yunchang’s golden skin. “For silk is far less precious than jade.”

“Jade,” Yunchang said. His lips were still swollen from his own teeth, but his breaths came deep and slow, and his voice was steady. “Is this what you think me to be?”

Humming in acquiescence, Mengde tugged the robe down further. Yunchang did not stop him; merely stayed there, unmoving, on the bed as Mengde laid him bare inch by inch. “You appear in many forms in my mind, Guan Yunchang, and all of them precious.”

Yunchang seemed to laugh, his shoulders shaking as he arched his back to give Mengde greater ease when stripping him. “I am but a lowly soldier, peasant-born and bred,” he said, echoing the words he had said during their first meal together. “It is irreverence to compare me to such noble things.” 

“What of bamboo, then?” Mengde asked, a smile tugging on the edges of his lips. With the way Yunchang had been calling for him before, he had not expected such cognizance from him. Was it because of Mengde’s own presence that his body had stopped shrieking with such need? 

“It is common enough, yet noble all the same.” He splayed his hand upon Yunchang’s now-bared chest. “Strong yet yielding,” he continued, voice lowering to a murmur. “To bend and never to break.” Fingers slid lower, and he relished the way Yunchang’s lashes fluttered at his touch. “It suits you well.”

“I am but a common man,” Yunchang whispered, “unworthy of such poetry.”

Leaning in, Mengde pressed his lips against the hollow of that pale throat. Yunchang’s pulse thrummed, heavy and quick like the drumbeats of war, and he smiled.

“The writing of poetry is limited to nobility,” he acknowledged. “But do the common man not deserve songs for their celebrations as well?”

Before Yunchang could answer, Mengde wrapped his arm beneath his body, nudging. Yunchang’s spine to curve for him, a perfect bow like the inside of a crescent moon, as he pushed himself up by the strength of his waist and flexing thighs alone. Mengde’s own eyes flitted close, and he breathed out a heavy pant as he guided Yunchang’s legs – with the strength of bamboo, and the beauty of jade and silk – to spread around his own hips.

For a man so slight and fragile-seeming, Yunchang was heavy, his weight sprawled over Mengde’s thighs. Mengde ignored the ache of those rare-used muscles, instead reaching for their robes again. He laid Yunchang’s right over the silk sheets, and then his own above; cotton to cover silk. 

Not for the sake of cleanliness, but because it fitted.

“Are you,” Yunchang said, his breath heavy against Mengde’s ear, “not going to take me?”

It was a fair question, Mengde knew: Yunchang could surely feel his desire pressing against him, tucked as he was against Mengde’s chest. But he laughed, nonetheless, carding his hand through that long, luxuriously-loose hair.

“Do you believe that I am such a man?” he asked, turning his head to brush his mouth over Yunchang’s jaw again. The skin there, smooth as any concubine’s, was incongruous with the strength Mengde knew this body held; the strength for which he had seen proof in the bloodied and mangled corpses that Yunchang had left in his wake. “That I would treat something so precious to be naught but a tool to slake my own desires?”

As he spoke, he moved his hand down Yunchang’s back. He counted the knobs of the spine, letting his thumb catch upon each other, before he curved around the man’s ass. Yunchang jerked in his lap as Mengde’s fingers slipped between the insides of his thighs— and stopped. 

It was just as he expected: there, the heavy balls that should exist if Yunchang truly was who he thought himself to be were absent. There was merely wiry hair surrounding wet folds. Mengde’s breath caught, air wrapped around the quiet _oh_ that had sat itself in his throat. 

He pulled back, and kissed Yunchang on the corner of the mouth again, swallowing back the apology he knew was there. His tongue slipped between those lips, tasting Yunchang, drinking in the taste of him – like a cool, fresh mountain spring – even as he slipped the tips of his fingers inside.

Yunchang jerked in his arms, a bitten-off gasp released into Mengde’s mouth. Gripping onto the strands of his hair, Mengde held him close before he started to thrust his fingers lightly inside: shallow, circling only the very rim where the flesh would clench tight against over a knot; the most sensitive part of an omega’s body.

For this man, this warrior, was an _omega_. This General, famed for his martial prowess, had the body of one whom the precepts dictated to be useful for naught but the bearing of children. A vessel for the continuation of a family line; most useful as a concubine, rarely worthy enough to be a wife.

The woman’s words from before came back to him: _He did not know_. Mengde had known what she meant, but he did not know this: how his heart would clench tight in his chest at everything Yunchang had surely gone through to hide this from even himself.

“Have you never wondered,” he asked, turning to pepper kisses from the spot below Yunchang’s ear down to his neck, sinking his fingers deeper inside, “about the smoothness of your cheeks?” 

A gasp was Yunchang’s response, twinned with fingers clawing at his sleeves. Mengde closed his eyes and pressed his thumb inside that slick hole, the tip of his finger running along the edges of the folds. “Have you seen the sunrise coming through a thick bamboo grove that sprouted beside a stream?” Mengde asked, his nails scraped over Yunchang’s scalp even as his other hand continued its slow, inexorable movements inside this strong, fragile-seeming body. “The shadows retreat to show rippling greens that shine brighter than gold, and the river turns molten silver with broken shards of gemstones floating on its surface.”

Yunchang gifted him a ragged, needy cry, immediately breathed in and stored safe within the cage of his ribs. 

“When I first saw you, I had thought,” Mengde continued, smile widening against Yunchang’s skin, “the sight of your fierce eyes set against the pale skin of your cheeks… it is a sight far more beautiful than even that.”

“Lordship,” Yunchang gasped out. His eyes were squeezed shut, hands clenched at Mengde’s sleeves as his head bowed low. The slick between his legs slipped down Mengde’s hand to coat his wrist. “Lord Cao.”

Mengde tutted. “Please, I do not appreciate such formality.” He drove his fingers in, and twisted hard; his thumb’s blunt nail scraped over the wet, swollen entrance again.

“Cao Mengde.” The name, mangled and made a treasure by shallow pants. Yunchang’s head dropped backwards, eyes still closed as his hips started rocking to the rhythm of Mengde’s hand. “Cao Mengde.”

“No,” Mengde said. “That requires more breath than that you can spare.” He licked a line up Yunchang’s throat, the tip hovering at the thickened knot in the middle. “I am not such a selfish man.”

“You are,” knuckles white, so white, and his shoulders trembling; a shivering line of gold, “selfish in your generosity.”

He threw himself forward, his face burying into Mengde’s still-clothed shoulder. His hips rocked even harder against Mengde’s hand, stuttering motions that he seemed to have no control over. “ _Mengde_ ,” he breathed.

The laugh burst out of Mengde, loud and delighted. He turned his head and pressed his lips to Yunchang’s temple, breathing in the scent of his sweat – like leaves after spring rains – before he nudged Yunchang’s jaw with his cheek until he could take his mouth.

“I have wanted to call you Yunchang,” Mengde said against that full, red mouth, “even since I first saw you.”

Yunchang’s kiss was sloppy and slow, mouth dragging over Mengde’s and smearing spit. His eyes were half-lidded, but the skin of his throat still fluttered like a hummingbird’s wing with the force of a chuckle.

“You did,” he said.

Sliding his fingers out, Mengde caught the twisting whine that escaped Yunchang before it could touch the air. He pressed three inside, and smirked against Yunchang’s jaw.

“Did I?” Mengde asked, feigning ignorance. “Did I, Yunchang-xiong?”

Head lifting, Yunchang’s gaze met his, and Mengde felt the breath being knocked out of his throat. Once, he had thought that the sight of those dark eyes cloaked in desire had outshone the cloudless night sky filled with stars. Now, when mirth had twined itself around those depths, and they… He could be addicted to this, he realised. The beauty of those eyes, focused entirely on him; the strength of this slim, strong body, turned pliant and leaning entirely against his own. The sweetness of a man who had stood alone in the world, relying on him.

“There is,” Yunchang’s each word was steady with deliberate and overt effort, “no brotherhood in this.”

Mengde pressed his mouth against his temple again, hiding his own eyes, his own face. He tangled his fingers into Yunchang’s hair, and sped up the movement of his fingers inside this man who had so enamoured him.

“No,” he admitted. “There is not.”

If there would be brotherhood that came of this, it would be between him and Liu Bei. The very thought made him laugh; a series of huffing breaths into Yunchang’s hair even as he twisted his fingers to distract him. For Mengde knew himself; knew the depths of his addictions. If the conditions for having Yunchang was to withstand Liu Bei, and to form some half-hearted alliance with him… he would do it.

He would do it with open hands and knife-curved lips. 

***

His hands were still shaking. Yunchang stared at them before he scrambled for the knife he kept within his sleeves, wrapping his fingers around the sheathed blade.

Footsteps. Qilan at the edge of his vision, sinking down to her knees. He had had to carry her into the carriage when they first left, but her fever had broken before they had reached the first town; before the first attack. He should find her a river so she could wash the sweat still slicked to her skin; to cleanse herself of the filth of the forced heat, but…

Closing his eyes, he tried to breathe. Pain throbbed at the back of his skull, at the base of his neck; unrelenting ever since he made the decision to leave Cao Cao’s camp to return to his elder brother. 

“Er-ge,” Qilan said. Her hands were soft and gentle upon his. It was kindness beyond what he deserved, but Yunchang could not bear to pull himself away. Not when her touch eased off some of the pain, and her scent – like magnolias, unfitting to the orchid in her name – unwound some of the tension in his shoulders.

“Forgive me,” Yunchang pleaded. “I have not protected as well as I should have. You have suffered greatly due to my failings.”

“You are not to be blamed for Lord Cao’s treachery,” Qilan started, but Yunchang could not have her continue, for the sound of the warlord’s name set off the pain flaring in his hips again, and he was doubling over and wrapping his arms around himself. As his head hit his knees, it throbbed even harder, lightning flashes of agony that stabbed into his skull and the back of his neck.

The blade clattered to the floor. Yunchang felt the tremors of the ground as Qilan left his side more than he heard her footsteps or saw her leave. 

It was better this way, Yunchang told himself. Better for her to leave so she would not have to withstand the sight of his weakness, his shame.

“Er-ge.” His ears were roaring and his nerves flooded with pain. Yunchang gritted his teeth and tried to straighten and, failing that, tried to gesture to the knife she must carry for her own protection.

She was shaking his shoulder. Yunchang tried to push her away, tried to tell her to, please, spare him some dignity. But she was whispering, “Er-ge, I’m sorry,” and there was suddenly no air in his lungs.

Yunchang only had a moment’s time to wonder just how she had the strength, or the daring, to _punch him_ when there was a hand over his nose and mouth. No, not just a hand: _leaves_ , dried, crisp and bitter and strident in scent. Yunchang tried to turn away, but his body shrieked for air and he took a long, gasping breath that drew bits and pieces of detritus to his tongue. He choked; just once. 

Then his head was suddenly clear, like the leaves were a strong wind that dissipated the gathering storm and silenced the fearful shrieks of those who lived by the riverside. The pain was still there, but now without distraction, it was easy enough to push away.

“Sao-zi,” he rasped out, leaning backwards so he could look up to her. “What…”

“My mother had always told me that I must carry mint with me,” Qilan said. Her hand still hovered in mid-air, and her other, Yunchang noticed, was clenched around a cloth pouch. “He said… he said that I will not know when something averse would happen, and mint could clear my head even if nothing else could.”

That explained how she could recover so quickly from her fever. Yunchang tried to smile, but he was sure the twisting curve of his lips was actually a grimace. “Thank you,” he said. “You… 

“There is nothing I can do for the pain here,” she interrupted, head ducked down and hand over her own abdomen. “My mother told me that there is mugwort root, but it must be fresh, and rolled into a thick stick, and set to flames from a fire fed by thick, waxy leaves. We…”

Yunchang shook his head. He brushed a few strands of sweat-sticky hair out of his eyes before he lifted himself up to settle on the log again. “It is merely pain,” he said, and reached out a hand towards her to help her up to the log again. “I can withstand it.”

Qilan gave him a look he had never once seen on her face: a sideways glance, a lopsided smile. She huffed out a breath and unfolded her legs, coming to sit next to him without taking his hand. He watched as she poured the leaves back into the pouch for a second before he turned his head and tried to discreetly spit out the pieces that were still stuck on his tongue.

“Er-ge,” she said. Before he could turn, she was shuffling closer, laying her head against his arm. “Did you always know?”

He wanted to tell her that he did not know what she was talking about. He wanted to lie. Instead, he could only stare down at his hands, and say, “That is a difficult question to answer, sao-zi.”

 _The er-ge I know does not obfuscate,_ he could almost hear her say. _The er-ge I know is honourable, and he would not lie_.

Leaves being crushed underfoot. Yunchang jerked, turning his head. Qilan had stood up, and she took the few steps needed to the still-sheathed knife, and picked it up.

“I recognise this symbol,” she said, tuning the blade over until the hilt was facing him. “I saw it sticking out of the stomach of a dead man outside my family’s doorstep.”

Yunchang winced. “You should not have had to witness such a thing,” he said.

To his surprise, she laughed. He had not heard her laugh ever since the raid on her village, but she was giggling now, one hand pressed over her mouth even as she flopped back down next to him. 

“It was you, wasn’t you?” she asked him, cocking her head to the side. Her large, dark eyes were fixed upon him, and her lips twitched upwards. “You killed those men.”

“They were…” Yunchang said. He bit his lip, and shook his head. 

“About to do to me what that Lord,” she dipped her head in the direction from which they had come, towards _that_ city, “was about to force you to do to me.”

Opening his mouth, Yunchang closed it. The pain between his hips flared up further, and he turned away, staring out towards the dark forest in the distance without recognising any of the shapes. “Sao-zi,” he said, and took a deep breath. “I have let you down.” 

“For ruining his plans?” Qilan asked. She placed a hand on his arm, and when he did not turn, she persisted, “For taking care of me ever since we met again?” She stood up, and shifted over, sinking her knees into the dirt in front of him. “For saving me even back then?”

“I did not,” Yunchang started. He licked his lips, and tried again. “I did not save you then.”

“You did not save me?” The words were an echo, but the upward lilt at the end rang out between them, sharp and loud like a proclamation, a damnation.

Yunchang shook his head. “I did not _mean_ to save you,” he corrected himself. “I… I was…” he lowered his head, staring down at his empty hands. The blade with its hilt – now made into his own symbol, the permission to have it writ into the records of his family granted to him by his elder brother for no peasant’s son could own such a thing – glinted in the light of fire.

He took a deep breath. “I was blinded,” he said haltingly, “by a duty I believed I had, but was nothing but an illusion crafted by the hands of selfishness. When I killed those men, it was because I wanted… I…”

Qilan’s hand brushed his jaw; over the smooth skin that he despised. “You wanted to believe,” she, merciful, finished for him. “Why?”

Closing his eyes, Yunchang clenched his hands into fists. “My family does not need the burden of yet another dowry,” he said. “And it was…”

“It was easy, wasn’t it, when there was no one who could make you reveal yourself? No one who could make the truth one that was undeniable?”

Yunchang stared at his hands. They were coated in blood from all of the soldiers and warriors he had killed. They were streaked with filth from all the lies he had told.

“Sao-zi, you asked if I had always known,” he said. When she nodded, he gave her a smile, lopsided and bitter-tasting. “I always have, and I never have.”

Qilan’s eyes widened. “Er-ge,” she started, but he shook his head, forestalling her protests, her pity.

There were duties for the sake of piety that required dishonourable deeds. There was honour necessary to brace the spine but which tore piety from his hands. Caught between the two, he was…

Cao Cao’s words: _I believe that it is the duty of rulers, Yunchang-xiong, to give all those beneath them the space to act with honour. Without need for them to tear out any part of themselves._

A man of great ideals. A man capable of terrible deeds. A man with no honour. A man who swore to build an honourable world with his bare two hands.

Closing his eyes, Yunchang said, “Guan Yu is a liar, and has always been.”

Small, smooth hands on his cheeks. “You are not one to me.” Qilan’s voice was fierce, but her quiet warmth slipped so quickly out of his reach. “You will never be one to me.”

Once he had thought: if he could love this woman, if he could marry her, then surely, _surely,_ he would become who he wished he could be. Now…

“You will always be my er-ge,” Qilan whispered.

Here, a pillar: her thin wrists beneath his hands, her warm breath against his skin, and her eyes that saw all that he was, all that which coated his skin, and still with enough kindness and mercy to lie that he truly was who he wished to be. 

Their foreheads touched. “Sao-zi,” Yunchang whispered, “Thank you.”

***

“When women and men are brought to the Emperor, they are advised to apply red dye on their cheeks and their lips.” Mengde did not bother keeping his voice steady; allowing the rough-hoarse edge to twine with his words. “Such dyes, the old ones said, would increase their beauty.”

Yunchang was leaning back so much that only Mengde’s hand on the small of his back kept him off the bed. His eyes fluttered open, the dark depths set into sharp contrast by the wet, red swells of his lips. Mengde gave him a small, lopsided smile, and pressed his three fingers deeper inside, twisting and twisting.

“Though the masters of the Tao are similarly old, they gift their advice not to the potential concubines, but to the Emperor himself,” Mengde continued. He stretched his thumb upwards, rubbing against the base of Yunchang’s cock, and relished in the bone-deep shudder that he caused. “They warned the Emperor that he must focus on the pleasure of his wives and concubine, for only then could he draw the energy needed to strengthen his body without losing his essence too often and too quickly.”

Chest heaving, Yunchang pulled himself back up, his fingers white-knuckled, paler than even the sleeves of Mengde’s robes. “Do you always talk so much?”

There, finally: a hint of impatience. Mengde hid his smile against the skin of that trembling throat, grazing his teeth above that racing pulse.

“Once you named me a wordsmith,” he pointed out. As he spoke, he scraped the nail of his thumb along the outside of Yunchang’s folds before dipping inside. The wet sounds of their joining filled the air, thick and obscene. “How can I resist?”

“What praise must I give you, then,” Yunchang said, his eyes half-lidded as his spine twisted from the pleasure Mengde was lighting up in his nerves, “so you will stop toying with my body so?”

“Those are good words,” Mengde said, “that is high praise.” The hand he had on Yunchang’s back curled inwards, nails scraping over the protruding knobs, the deep-drawn lines of muscle. “But I must not be doing well enough, Yunchang, for I am still waiting.”

Yunchang arched. His thighs, spread around Mengde’s hips, twitched, heels kicking at the sheets. “Waiting?” he gasped out.

“Waiting,” Mengde confirmed. “For my breath is taken by your beauty, my nerves set afire by your strength, and my knot grows at the scent of your need.” Yunchang shuddered again, a twisting whine escaping him at the filth now hovering in the air, and Mengde turned his head, scraping teeth over Yunchang’s wrist to let him feel his grin. 

“But I have yet to hear you ask, and I am not a selfish man.”

Opening his eyes fully, Yunchang stared at him. Mengde shrugged, and sank four fingers inside that wet, clenching hole before he curled them, letting his nails scrape lightly – so lightly – against the seizing walls before he focused on the entrance, on the rim where he knew Yunchang was the most sensitive.

Yunchang twisted in his arms, body bending forward again, curling up as his cry rang out through the room

“You wish for me to,” he started, and shook his head hard, words failing him. He was so wet that it was easy for Mengde to push his fingers right back in and do it all over again, lingering at the entrance, rubbing his fingertips at the skin right there, tugging and tugging as he pulled noises out of Yunchang’s lungs and throat. His own desire sat at his stomach, coiling and coiling, a tight band that crawled up to his chest and throat. But Mengde pulled it away, resisting the urge to close his eyes and instead took in the sight of Yunchang, his golden skin stained red with a flush that rose from the base of his ribs up to his cheeks, setting the curves of the bones under skin into sharp relief.

“Please,” Yunchang breathed. “Please, please.”  
_  
Oh._ There had so many who had offered such words to Mengde, but none had ever been so sweet; no other tongue than this man’s had ever wrapped so beautifully around those words and sent them out into the air still trembling.

“What,” Mengde asked, “are you asking for?”

Perhaps he was cruel. Perhaps he was pushing Yunchang to a desert, where he, water, would slip there into the barren sands. But Mengde had seen a path spread out in front of him, and he desired most of all for Yunchang to walk on it alongside him, his weight and want keeping the stone pavement from cracking.

“I, I am,” Yunchang stuttered. His face was pressed into Mengde’s shoulder, still stubbornly avoiding skin, and Mengde crawled those fingers on his back upwards until he tangled them into Yunchang’s hair again. “I _need_ …”

“Tell me,” Mengde urged. He pulled his fingers out, and wrapped them, coated in Yunchang’s own slick, around Yunchang’s cock. Slow, light strokes; his fingers hovering rather than touching.

Yunchang trembled in his arms once more, unspeaking. Mengde had patience aplenty, so he peppered kisses into Yunchang’s hair and temple and jaw and cheek, nosing light against strands and skin. Soothing. Waiting.

“I have called you in here, Mengde, with the force of my need,” Yunchang said at last. Near-steady, and every tremor was precious gems falling from his red, red mouth. 

“Please,” he whispered, head dropped back and throat bared. “Please take me.”

Mengde pushed his fingers inside Yunchang again. At the same time, he gripped tight to one wrist, shifting it downwards until those loose, twitching fingers were pressed against the bulge pressing against his own robes.

“With this, Yunchang?” he asked. Then he shifted down lower, until Yunchang’s fingertips touched his emerging knot. “Or this?”

Yunchang’s fingers twitched. Mengde allowed him to hear the groan that rumbled in his throat; allowed him to feel its beginnings in his chest.

Silence fell between them. The room was filled only with the wet sounds of Mengde’s fingers moving inside Yunchang’s body.

Then Yunchang lifted his head. His lips were thin. Mengde barely had the time to cock his head in question before there were strong hands on his chest, and Yunchang’s arms were flexing as he shoved him down. The bamboo mat shifted as Mengde’s back slammed against it, and the light wood beneath squeaked as Yunchang climbed on top of him.

There, like this: his hair falling over his face, the dark strands framing golden skin brushed over with red; his trembling arms, his heaving chest, the muscles of his stomach all tremulous with the rising, cresting waves of desire. Sunshine from the open slat shining between his thighs, catching on streaks of slick and sweat, making the skin gleam gold.

“If you will not take me,” Yunchang said, his teeth gritted and the tendons of his neck standing out, “then I will have you instead.” He threw his head back, and his fingers were swift upon the ties of Mengde’s under-robes.

Mengde pushed himself back to sit. He did not try to help, relishing instead in the threads of pride that had twined itself so around Yunchang’s form as he lifted himself up and spread his own legs around Mengde’s hips. The glimmering strings that tugged on him so as he wrapped his fingers around Mengde’s cock, as his lips drew tight into a single line; those strings that led straight back to Mengde himself, woven by his throat and hands.

Yet he would not have Yunchang walk beside him in chains. Water, after all, could not be held back; even dams could only do so much to temper its force.

As the robes fell off his body, he reached out, spreading his fingers around Yunchang’s waist. Those eyes turned to him, sharp and narrowed, and Mengde softened his smile as much as he could, tucking the edges of his teeth behind his lips.

“For the sake of pride; for the sake of honour,” Mengde murmured. The difference between the two was as minute as a stream hid in the mountains, as wide as a hand’s breadth, but vital nonetheless to a parched and dying man. “Neither, Guan Yunchang, need to cause you pain.”

Muscles jumped beneath Mengde’s hand; Yunchang, clever, understood Mengde’s deliberate use of his name. But his head bowed so low that his hair hid his eyes, and his thighs trembled with the strain of holding himself above Mengde’s hips.

“What use can either be for one such as me?” Bitter, so bitter, was his voice; the stream had reached the sea and its currents driven the droplets apart. “Are you not making me admit it, Cao Mengde? That I am naught but a liar?”

“You are no liar,” Mengde said. He cupped Yunchang’s cheek, and oh, his chest ached so sweetly when Yunchang turned his head to nuzzle him, smooth skin against his rough palm. “Do you not remember the story I told you?”

Lifting his eyes, Yunchang said, “You have told me many stories.”

“Confucius taught that pears must be shared,” Mengde said, his lips curving upwards as he leaned in, pressing his mouth against Yunchang’s temple. “Yet his descendent refused to pour the wine.”

Fingers hesitant on his sleeves. Mengde held still, and his eyes fell shut despite himself when Yunchang’s fingers – warm, _so_ warm, his passion burning bright despite the tethers of honour and duty he had set upon himself – brushed against his skin.

“To say that the precepts are wrong… that is blasphemy, Cao Mengde,” Yunchang murmured.

“You call me a wordsmith,” Mengde returned, brushing his hand along the midnight-black strands, lightly tugging. “And precepts are made of words. Words carved on stone, perhaps, but even stone can be worn away by the steady wearing of water.”

“Are you calling yourself a stream?” Yunchang asked.

Chuckling, Mengde shook his head. He trailed his fingers down Yunchang’s chest, face still buried in his hair, and slipped between his thighs. His hole was still slick, still swollen with need, and Yunchang gave him a soft, breathy gasp when he dipped his fingertips inside again.

Yunchang’s hand inched upwards, beneath his sleeve. Mengde let out a long breath, leaning towards the touch, not stopping him as Yunchang found the cord that tied his hair back and released it. The piece of leather dropped onto the bed. Yunchang’s dark eyes on his own, now, and he smiled with lashes that splayed deep shadows across his cheeks. Mengde pulled his fingers down, and laid him down on the bed once more, on top of their clothes. Cotton upon silk, and jade spread above.

“Come,” Yunchang said. He tipped his head back as Mengde settled between his legs. He arched his back at the hand running down his sides, and folded his knees towards his chest. “Will you not show me your flames?”

“You ask for the impossible,” Mengde said. His hand landed on top of Yunchang’s chest, right above his furiously beating heart. He crooked a smile at the brief confusion in those eyes, leaning in with his mouth brushing the curve of Yunchang’s ear. “For, Yunchang, it is within you that they burn.”

Lining himself up, Mengde pushed in. He caught Yunchang’s stuttering gasp with his lips, and threw his own head back at the wet, clenching heat that threatened to devour him.

“Fire and water and jade,” he slurred out, breath skittering over Yunchang’s skin. “Do you still wonder, Yunchang, why I wish for you to be mine?” 

Yunchang’s laughter, deep and rumbling in his chest. The clench of him around Mengde’s cock. The brightness of his eyes.

“Yes, Cao Mengde,” he said. His fingertips traced the air over Mengde’s jaw. “I do.”

***

Perhaps the world had awaited his admission of guilt, sparing him some reprieve before it rained its punishments upon his head. Perhaps his admission had carved his culpability in skin until it shone from his clothes, and all those who looked upon him hated him.

Yunchang’s shoulders shook as he knelt on the ground. Even when blaming himself, he was still arrogant. Even when he knew the feet upon whom this blame must be laid, he still skittered away from it, a mouse rather than a warrior, without even a rat’s courageous cunning.

This was Cao Cao’s fault, he knew. Cao Cao had promised to let him go whenever he wished, and yet Yunchang had spent the past days running and running, and this was his reward for the one time he had kept his honour: poison that lingered on his bones, and rocks flung at his head. 

And his empty hands. Qilan was gone; he could not reach her now. He did not know where she was; could not even ask. There was a cut on his forehead, bleeding slow and sluggish, and the pain of the rocks set scarlet sparking behind his eyes.

But the agony of failure twisted harder in his chest. There was a pitchfork aimed towards him, and a man powered by rage. Yunchang looked straight ahead. Surely this was justice: Guan Yu was a liar; Guan Yu should not exist; thus, the vessel that held the man he once was should be gone as well.

It was justice. If his actions could not bring succour to these soldiers and civilians, then let his death do so. Let his death bring them some respite, at least, for it was for his sake that that their beloved governor had died.

Footsteps. A spear beside him. Zhang Liao’s voice, speaking Qilan’s name. The deep rumble of it echoing, and echoing. Yunchang stood, and turned. He walked. His footsteps on the sand resounded in the silence that fell.

It was in that silence, in this strangely heavy air, that Cao Cao appeared in front of him. Dressed in black with his broadsword strapped to the small of his back, and a furrow upon his brow.

His feet froze without his mind’s commands. For a moment, Yunchang wondered if he was still caught within the poison’s fever-dreams. He had dreamt of this man coming for him; dreamt of Cao Cao’s presence, the coiling smoke of his scent that surrounded him. He had dreamt of Cao Cao’s sheer presence sweeping away all of the enemies with their gleaming blades, and the warmth of his touch chasing away the pain in his stomach and head that still ached and ached.

Nothing but foolishness, Yunchang knew. Nothing, for now the doors were closing behind him, and he could hear the sliding of metal against metal as Cao Cao’s warriors drew their swords. He could hear the sound of knees hitting the ground. 

A child, screaming. 

There was nothing good in Cao Cao. _Nothing, nothing_ , the word rang and rang in his head; a thousand bells, a million shrieks in recrimination. He had been such a fool. He had been greedy. Within his hands he had duty and honour, and yet he had wanted… He had…

“General Guan,” Cao Cao said, and Yunchang barely kept himself standing. Cao Cao’s voice, the deep rumble that sank into his poison-soaked bones. The _name_ he used, so full of distance. Knives in his belly had travelled up to his chest, metal unwinding into wires that slipped between his ribs to squeeze and squeeze.

“If we don’t kill these people, your reputation will be destroyed once word gets out,” Cao Cao continued. His words seemed to come from such a long distance away. “That ruination will last for ten thousand years.”

“I will kill anyone who tries!” he snarled. He should turn his head to the soldiers, to make real his threat, but his eyes were fixed upon Cao Cao. 

Close, so close. 

He should leave. He should raise his blade, at the very least. But Cao Cao had woven spiderweb threads with his voice, and they bound Yunchang in place.

 _Fool_ , he berated himself. Had he forgotten that this was the man who drugged Qilan, and would have forced him into hurting her irreparably?

“Then you will never be a hero again,” Cao Cao said. “All of your previous efforts will be gone.”

Yunchang clenched his hand around his throat. He repeated himself. _Fool, fool, fool,_ a new set of bells. The hint of Cao Cao’s scent, the smoke so close, and his traitorous body, his traitorous heart, wanting, _wanting_.

 _Lord Guan_ , Cao Cao said, and Yunchang’s knees felt weak and his eyes burned. He did not deserve such a title. Yet, he did not deserve the intimacy of Cao Cao’s lips wrapped around his courtesy name either.

Before: honour and duty in his hands, and Qilan just at the edge of his vision where he could keep her safe. Now: nothing but emptiness, an abyss coiling into being inside him, desiring and desiring in ways he knew would never be allowed.

Guan Yu was a lie; Guan Yu did not exist. There was only Yunchang, little more than the shell of a body that did not fit and could not be. Honour and duty had caged him but he had never once cast himself into full-dark; his hands were wrapped around the bars, imprinting the feel of their solidity to his bones even as he stared outside. 

This was what he knew: Cao Cao wanted Guan Yu, for the warrior was a useful chess piece. Why else would he have drugged Qilan and placed her in the bedchambers for Yunchang to take, to have? Guan Yu would have desired her, would have wanted her; a General’s love for a maiden of great beauty and gentility.

Only Guan Yu’s wings were considered beautiful enough that, when torn and dried, they were considered worthy enough to decorate the web that the spider constantly wove.

“Honoured citizens,” Cao Cao was saying. “If today’s events were to spread, there can only be one consequence: the destruction of all clans, all families.”

The villagers fell to their knees in a rustle of cloth and sand. 

(His elder brother had said: _Cao Cao was dangerous; Cao Cao was ruthless._ )

Cao Cao bowed his head. “Much obliged.”

(Outside of Cao Cao’s kingdom, it was said: he was a usurper in waiting, a snake with his tail curled around the foot of the throne, his fangs bared towards the Emperor’s throat, venom dripping and tongue hissing. It was said: he had a fox’s cunning, and there was nothing he would not do, no lies he would not tell. It was said: to plead to Cao Cao was to waste breath, for he had no mercy and would only give a harsher punishment instead.)

Dark eyes on him, fierce and solemn. 

“Yunchang-xiong,” Cao Cao said, and Yunchang’s head spun and spun. “The role of a hero must be yours to take.”

His hands, large and warm, on Yunchang’s shoulders; those shoulders ill-fitting for the station he was supposed to have; shoulders earned through the endless weaving of lies. 

“The role of the villain,” Cao Cao stepped back, “is _mine_.”

Broad hand on his own chest, the slap of it tangling with the rumble of his voice to wrap around Yunchang’s form. Yunchang did not need to turn to know that the soldiers were retreating, that the villagers were on their knees.

A snake with his fangs bared. A spider who wove webs enticing. A fox with teeth sharp enough to cut through ropes to get to his prey. A man whose wore danger around him with as much ease and nonchalance as his cotton robes; who offered benediction and death with hands as loose as they were when propped up on the hilt of his broadsword. Snake, spider, fox. _Danger, danger_. Cao Cao’s broad back as he walked away, not looking back. The scent of him: oak-smoke, soft and sweet.

The pain in Yunchang’s head had eased. The pain in his stomach had vanished. In their places: heat, rising; warmth, wrapped around him, soothing and tugging loose the knots that had gathered in his body.

He looked down at his hands. He could see the threads that Cao Mengde had woven, glimmering underneath the sunlight. Snake, spider, fox. Bared fangs and spun web and flashing teeth.

All for his sake.

Yunchang closed his eyes. He exhaled, long and slow. He let his hands drop back to his side. Those threads tugged on him. This time, he did not resist. 

Perhaps he was walking to his doom. But it felt – _foolish, foolish_ – like he was heading for shelter again. Shelter he had not found ever since he left Cao Cao’s city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The weirdest thing is that: every time I start writing this pairing telling myself that it’s going to be abusive and dubcon and horrible, they end up falling in love instead. I don’t even know why.


	3. 七情具, “the seven passions.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depictions of a character calling themselves a slave without the American associations of legalised contractual obligations usually associated with the term. Entirely historically and culturally accurate, but still might be come across as inappropriate; please take care.

He should wear white more often, Mengde thought idly. It was the colour of death, inauspicious, but such concerns seemed minor compared to how clean, brilliant white would make the sprawled tapestry of Yunchang’s hair stand out so much more; would set to gleaming his sweat-slicked golden skin.

Nothing to do about that now. There were things he would test Yunchang’s limits about, and this was not one of them.

Running his hand down that strongly-muscled side, Mengde pulled out. He pressed back in, slow and steady, and thrust hard and sharp to make their hips smack against each other, rubbing his emerging knot against the rim of Yunchang’s hole. Yunchang gasped for him, his arms trembling where they were held over his flushed face, and his teeth sank down deep into his bottom lip.

“So restrained,” Mengde murmured, unable to keep the amusement from his voice. “Do you find this shameful, Yunchang?” 

The wet, slick sounds of his movements filled the spaces between their breaths. He rolled his hips, and his thumb brushed over a nipple. Yunchang arched, eyes going so wide that they peeked out from beneath his crossed arms. Mengde was not a selfish man: he shared the pleasure; did it again. This time, Yunchang let out a hiccupping, breathy whine.

Hands splaying on Yunchang’s chest, he closed those peaked nipples between his fingertips even as he pulled out and thrust in again, long and slow and deep. Yunchang tossed his head from side to side, his thighs and calves clenching around Mengde’s hips, but he still refused to move back against him; still refused to allow himself to make a louder sound.

“There is no shame in this,” Mengde said. He was thrusting steadily now. “I will have your voice fill this house, Yunchang.” Nails on a nipple, and Yunchang jerked, trying to twist away, but Mengde had hold of his hip and kept him still. “I will have your voice rise and rise until it bursts through those walls, and all outside know your body’s capacity for pleasure.”

He dragged Yunchang closer, fingers digging into the muscles of his ass as he seated him in his lap. This way, he could go even deeper, and Yunchang shook and shook for him. 

“Until you know your body’s capacity for pleasure, my jade.”

Mengde knew he could go faster. He could pin Yunchang to the bed; could shove those arms away from his face. He could fuck Yunchang so hard that he could not help but scream; could overwhelm him past his reflexes and wrench those noises out of his throat, fuck them out of him with hard thrusts until he tied them together and seeded him. Until Yunchang had no choice but to carry his child, and therefore stay beside Mengde forever.

But there were broken soldiers and shattered concubines aplenty, and Mengde had never availed himself of them. Perhaps, his lips twitched up, this was his form of pride. He’d rather think it was simply logic: water, after all, should not be contained, but allowed to flow strong and deep until it wore away stone.

“You find this pleasing.”

Yunchang’s voice, low and rasping. His arms slightly lowered, pressed now against his nose and mouth instead of his eyes.

“To have you?” Mengde tilted his head to the side. He deliberately dragged his cock slow as he pulled out, until the very tip was left inside, before he thrust back in while rolling his hips. “Was that of any doubt?”

“That is not what I mean,” Yunchang said, his voice cracking upon the second word. He squeezed his eyes shut as Mengde bottomed out again, throwing his head back as Mengde ground their hips together, aiming specifically at the bright-sparking nerves at the rim of his hole.

“You prefer…” he swallowed. “If I do not restrain myself, you will not find this a challenge, Mengde.”

Helplessly, Mengde laughed, warmth growing in his chest. He reached out and cupped Yunchang’s cheek with a hand, leaning over his body until he could touch their foreheads together. His hips did not stop the movements, and he stroked his other hand over Yunchang’s throat, feeling the vibration of his gasps.

“Do you know, Yunchang, why I have never wedded?” There had been questions, of course; Mengde, in never marrying, was in the danger of having his line die out with him. There had even been some who suggested, with averted eyes and out of the corners of their mouths, that Mengde’s tastes were so perverse that not even his power could persuade any Alpha to give him their children, whether beta or omega, sons or daughters. 

“There have been many offers,” Mengde said when Yunchang tilted his head instead of speaking aloud. “But I looked upon them, and I thought: no, they could not walk beside me. I will not have one with whom I am bound to wait, shackled to home and safety, while I attended to the affairs of state and military.” His hand slid into Yunchang’s hair, tugging at the strands even as he drew out slow and slammed back inside; hard enough to make Yunchang’s back arch off the bed and his lips parted in a harsh, bitten-off groan.

“You have said that my generosity is selfish,” he continued, pulling back and rocking back inside inch by inch. “Would you call this generosity unbridled, or plain selfishness?”

He could feel the pleasuring rising in Yunchang from the tremors of his body under his hands. If it was anyone else, it would be cruel for him to expect an answer now. But Mengde had underestimated this man once, and he would never do it again.

“This is,” Yunchang’s voice, muffled behind his arms, shuddered in between each word. “You think me your equal.”

Mengde smiled. It would never surprise him, the great gulf between how Yunchang viewed himself and what Mengde’s eyes could see.

Leaning in, he spoke into Yunchang’s hair, his breath ghosting over the shell of one perfectly-formed ear: “You are the greatest warrior this realm had ever seen.” He closed his fingers around Yunchang’s nipples, squeezing and rubbing, the movements counterpoint staccato to his thrusts into his rippling heat. “You have done so despite the precepts that stated your place to be as far apart from the battlefield as a body could be.”

Yunchang opened his mouth, but Mengde pressed a kiss to the corner of it, silencing him. “Those precepts had strangled you, caged you, and with you, most of the world.” He caught hold of one hand, sliding his thumb from the base of the wrist up to the longest finger, feeling the smooth skin and the strong muscles; incongruous and yet terribly fitting. “Yet you still hold by them, and behaved with such honour that all who looked upon you could not help but praise your devotion to duty.”

Lifting his head, Mengde paused. There were tears at the corners of Yunchang’s eyes. His own hand wanted to tremble as he reached for the edges of them, and he allowed it to as he brushed across the gently-creased skin. 

“Do you find this so surprising?”

Those dark eyes fell shut, quivering lashes casting long shadows across his cheeks. Like jade, Mengde thought. Like silk, like bamboo. Beautiful and strong, and yet with enough fragility to warrant gentle hands.

Slowly, Yunchang lowered his arms. His eyes opened again. The smile on his lips was inexplicably, and yet so terribly, sweet. He reached up, and his fingertips tangled with the ends of Mengde’s unbound hair.

“Come now,” Yunchang said. His legs tightened around Mengde’s waist. “Show me my body’s capacity of pleasure, Mengde.”

What pleasure was there in taking when Mengde could instead _receive_?

Reaching out, Mengde brushed his hand down the length of one arm. “Come,” he echoed. “Hold on tightly to me.” When Yunchang blinked at him, Mengde gave him a lopsided smile, wry and sly both. “You will need it.”

“This is not a ploy for me to not hide my face?” Yunchang asked, but he did as Mengde bid.

“It is,” Mengde confirmed. He set his palms on Yunchang’s hips, and closed his fingers one by one. “But it is also true.”

Then, before Yunchang could reply, he pulled out until only the tip remained, and slammed back inside. Yunchang jerked beneath him, his arms clenching tightly, and his head threw back as his lips parted.

So Mengde did it again, and again. Deep and rapid, every single thrust making the wooden slats beneath them squeak as their bodies slipped and slid against cotton and silk and bamboo. Yunchang’s gasping breath in his ear, as if Mengde was punching air out of his lungs with his cock alone, and the sounds of their joining filled the air. 

The scent of clean, fresh water, nearly overwhelmed by the heaviness of need.

Mengde turned his head. He pressed his mouth against Yunchang’s neck, teeth scraping over the skin, before one hand left his hip. He slipped his thumb down, and Yunchang was so wet, his thighs dripping with it, that it was easy to slip a finger inside him, right beside his cock. Yunchang made a sound, a strangled moan, and Mengde scraped his thumb over the edges of his hole, rubbing and rubbing.

“Ah!”

Not quite a scream; not just yet. Mengde considered for a moment, weighing the pleasure of having Yunchang like this and having Yunchang wild with ecstasy. It was not difficult.

He pulled out. Yunchang whined, his hands clawed in the air as Mengde moved away. His eyes opened, and there was a sudden flash in them that reached down deep inside Mengde’s chest and twisted at his non-existent heart. He cupped Yunchang’s face, brushing his thumb over his cheek, before he ducked his head down.

Hands on Yunchang’s thighs, he dove in. He pressed his tongue against the folds, licking along their swollen lines and curves. Yunchang tasted of sweet, fresh water, but yet sweeter still was his gasp and the jerk of his hips; honey seeping into Mengde’s blood as his legs clamped around his shoulders, heels digging into the bones of the blades. 

“That’s—” 

Speaking, Mengde thought, should not be allowed. He sank four fingers inside Yunchang’s hole, thrusting shallowly with them before he pulled them out. He gripped tightly to those thighs, pressed his mouth flush against the swollen entrance, and thrust his tongue in, sharp.

Above him, Yunchang jerked again. Wood shrieked, and there was a loud _thump_. 

Mengde fucked him with his tongue, pressing inside as deep as he could before he swirled it, tasting the sweet-salt of Yunchang’s slick as he rubbed against the nerves hidden within the swollen flesh, leaving no inch untouched. Yunchang was making high-pitched cries, the sound of his nails scraping against cloth drowned out by the obscene slurps of Mengde’s motions.

“Please!” Yunchang’s voice, loud and ringing. “Mengde, Mengde, please!”

Sinking his fingertips inside, Mengde wet them thoroughly before, with a twist of his wrist, he wrapped them around Yunchang’s cock. He tilted his head, settling himself more comfortably on his knees and elbows, before he stroked him in tandem with the thrusts of his tongue inside him.

Yunchang’s nails over the knobs of his spine. His breath in Mengde’s hair. His back a bow as he bent over Mengde’s body. “Please.” A wrenching sob, his voice utterly wrecked by his whining gasps. “Please, please, I can’t- please-” 

Pulling back, Mengde scraped his teeth against one strong, tremulous thigh. His beard was wet with Yunchang’s slick, and the rough, soaked strands on smooth skin ripped another groan out of Yunchang’s throat.

With tongue still inside Yunchang and his hand on his cock, Mengde considered. Then he said, “Not yet.”

“How—” Yunchang started, and Mengde merely smiled against his skin before he reached up with his own hand. He flicked one nipple, his callus catching against it, and Yunchang gifted him with another hiccupping gasp, sweeter than any nectar.

“Like this,” Mengde said. He fucked his tongue inside, swirled it around, and at the same time twisted the nipple in his grasp and flicked his fingertips over the head of Yunchang’s cock.

Yunchang shuddered, the tremor going through his body. His breath between Mengde’s shoulder, wet. Then—

“ _Mengde!_ ”

He screamed.

Pulling back swiftly, Mengde caught the back of Yunchang’s head with one hand before he could slam it against the bed. Those eyes, bleary and pleasure-dazed, tried to fix on him, and Mengde licked his lips. Holding onto that gaze, he lifted his hand, and licked it clean of the clear slick from Yunchang’s cock, laving at every single inch as Yunchang shook for him again.

“Please,” Yunchang gasped. His voice was so hoarse, so tremulous, and Mengde felt his own desire and need encroach once more into his mind.

This time, he gave in to it. He fell upon Yunchang, cupping that beautiful face between his filthy hands.

“I will have you stay with me,” he said, leaning their foreheads together. “I will have you walk beside me down whatever path that we would carve together.” His thumb brushed against that teeth-swollen and reddened lip again. “Will you let me tie us together?”

Yunchang’s hand trembled as he caught the strands of Mengde’s hair. He closed his eyes. “Please,” he breathed. “Knot me.”

It was not an answer. Mengde could see, right then, the threads that were wound around Yunchang’s throat, red and thick and strangling. He wrapped his hands around that long, pale column, and though Yunchang arched for him, he could not tear away those strings.

Here, a sudden hollowness: right in the centre of his chest, where he could hear the thundering of his own heart. Mengde let out a breath. He would have Yunchang come to him of his own volition. He would not make the same mistake again.

Nodding, he pulled back. He took Yunchang’s legs and wrapped them around his own waist. As Yunchang’s eyes slowly focused back onto him, he cupped a cheek as he lined himself up, and pushed back inside.

Yunchang moaned, low and deep, at the taking. He shook his head from side to side, helplessly overwhelmed, but his hands did not cover his face now: they come up to wrap around Mengde’s neck. Mengde let the warmth and weight of him sink down to his bones. Then he closed his hands around Yunchang’s hips, and took him. He fucked him fast and hard and deep, giving into his own twisting need as he panted against Yunchang’s shoulder and throat. At the base of his cock, catching against the rim of Yunchang’s hole with every thrust, he could feel his knot growing and growing.

“Mengde,” Yunchang breathed. Mengde closed his eyes, and his teeth dug deep into the skin and muscle of Yunchang’s right arm; of the arm that Yunchang used to carry his glaive, the core of his strength.

As Yunchang whined, arching, he pulled back until only the tip of his cock remained inside. He rolled his hips, just once, before he slammed in hard, spreading Yunchang wide around the girth of his knot. 

It was as if his body was lightning and Yunchang was a sword: he jerked hard, shaking, and his entire body lifted off the bed until only his shoulders remained. His lips parted. Mengde slammed their mouths together, breathing in the second scream that Yunchang gifted him, and locked the sound deep inside his chest.

Yunchang’s body clamped down hard on him, tying them together, and Mengde gasped at the tight grip on the most sensitive part of his body. Unbidden, his hips drove forward again as he spilled inside Yunchang, seeding him, and he groaned into those full lips, into that precious mouth, as Yunchang’s insides rippled around his cock to drag his come deeper inside.

He laid there, breathing, for a long moment before his mind, ever arrogant and domineering, wedged his body away for his attention. Mengde lifted himself up with his hands around Yunchang’s head, panting as he brushed his tangled hair out of his eyes.

There was a game played between the soldiers, he knew, with dice hidden under three cups. One man would take charge of shaking the dice, and the rest would place money on their guesses. With every cup revealed, each man had a choice to stay with his current bet, or double it.

Stroking Yunchang’s face with one hand, Mengde brushed a thumb over an eye. When Yunchang blinked them open to look at him, Mengde smiled. He leaned down, and took his mouth again.

Yunchang returned his kiss slow and sweet, clearly still dazed, and he gasped and shuddered each time Mengde’s cock pulsed inside him, pumping even more seed into his body. Mengde licked into that mouth, tasting the sweet waters of mountain springs.

What was the term the soldiers had used for their betting? Ah, yes. ‘Double or nothing.’

“Mengde,” Yunchang said once they pulled apart. His eyes were heavy-lidded, and his cheeks still flushed. Mengde looked at him, and smiled.

Only a fool would take such a gamble when there were no sign that he would not lose everything. When his success depended on the capricious changes in the wind; in the rush of waters of a mountain spring. He knew the depths of his addictions. He knew, too, that he would be a willing fool.

How could he not when the prize at the end was to have Yunchang by his side? Not merely walking along the same path – for brothers could claim the same – but with hands joined to build a shelter together with them both?

“I’m here,” he said, and kissed this man, this man who was his desire made form and flesh, again.

***

The forest was dark, the morning’s sunlight barely filtering through the thick canopy overhead. The forest was silent, the tapping of the horse’s hooves swallowed up by the lush grass beneath.  
Mengde’s soldiers had been left far behind. 

Here, Yunchang could close his eyes and pretend – for just a moment – that all that it should be. That his muscles did not ache, and his back did not twinge with every roll of the carriage’s wheels over uneven ground, and a lingering heat had not settled between the bones of his hips.

“Er-ge,” Qilan said. She waited until he pulled on the reins of his horse, stilling it. “Can we stop for a moment?”

Yunchang blinked. He jumped down from the carriage, his sandaled feet tapping on the grass. He swept open the curtain that kept Qilan hidden, holding out his hand to help her down the steps.

“Is there anything the matter, sao-zi?”

Qilan’s eyes were cast to the ground, and the fingers held above her stomach kept tangling and untangling with each other. “I know it is not my place, er-ge, but…” She lifted her head. Her smile was crooked. “You don’t need to go back with me.”

“I have to return,” Yunchang said. His body, unused to the exertions he had put it through in the past three days, shrieked at him to stop standing. He ignored it in favour of focusing on Qilan. “It is not for your sake, sao-zi, so do not worry yourself so.”

“Why, then?” Qilan asked. “Why would you return, and leave…” She swept out a hand. “Leave all this behind?”

He had asked himself the same question many times the previous night, when his heat had abated enough for his mind to be clear. He had mouthed the question over and over as he laid beside Mengde, his fingers trailing through that tangled, sweat-soaked hair that had been loosed for him and only him, his eyes soaking in the sight of the man in repose, helpless and vulnerable and completely unlike the dangerous creature that so many had named him. He had breathed in the scent of him, oak-smoke like the welcoming hearth of home, even as his lips practiced the words he needed to take his leave.

“Guan Yu has made a vow of brotherhood,” Yunchang said, tilting his head up. There, at the edge of his vision, was a single droplet of dew hovering at the tip of a waxy green leaf. He watched it fall and splatter on the ground. “I must return to fulfil it.”

“Perhaps I do not understand, for I am but lowly,” Qilan said, her voice hesitant. “But, er-ge… You shared a heat with… with that man.” Her eyes flickered to the side, in the direction from which the had come. 

“You can say his name,” Yunchang gentled his voice. “It will not hurt me.”

Qilan looked at him for a long moment before she nodded. She took a step forward and, before Yunchang could stop her, she had curled one hand around his wrist and pressed the other over his abdomen, right where Mengde’s warmth lingered.

“The blood you share with Lord Cao, er-ge, is one far stronger than the spilled blood that you have mixed with Liu da-ge,” she said. When Yunchang tried to pull away, she closed in further on him, and pressed harder against his abdomen. “Please, er-ge. You know this.”

She took a shuddering breath. “Please,” she continued, gaze fixed upon his face. “You don’t have to go back with me.”

Swept up in the passion of her plea, Yunchang opened his mouth. But the breath was knocked out of his lungs when the winds shifted the leaves, and sunlight caught on the tears clinging to her lashes. 

“I don’t understand,” he stuttered. “I thought you disliked Cao Mengde greatly—”

“No,” she interrupted him, showing even more daring than she had when she punched him in the lungs, in another time, at another forest. Her hand clenched tight around his wrist. “Er-ge, it doesn’t matter what I think of Lord Cao. You just… please, you need not return with me.”

Realisation came to Yunchang slowly, like the peeking of the sun from behind thunder-freed clouds after the storm. He stared at her. “It is not that you wish for me to return to Cao Mengde,” he said, each word forced out from between his locking jaw. “You do not wish for me to return to da-ge.”

Qilan closed her eyes. “This slave is undutiful,” she murmured under her breath, the words running together like river mud after the flood. “This slave has overstepped her place.”

“Sao-zi,” Yunchang said, taking one of her hands before she could turn back again. “What do you _mean_?”

“You do not know, you did not see,” Qilan said, still so soft, still slurring. “No one saw but Liu da-ge and me.”

Yunchang looked at her. He should be gentle, he knew; she was his sao-zi, simultaneously above him by position and below in status. He ran a hand over his face before he turned, tugging her with him before they headed inside the carriage. He pulled the curtains close, encasing them in the red-tinted darkness.

“None here but me will hear,” Yunchang told her. “Please, sao-zi. Tell me.” Her eyes remained fixed upon her hand. No, Yunchang realised: upon the grip he still had on her fingers. When he let go, she snatched it back, her hands clutching at one another again.

“Liu da-ge came for this slave,” Qilan said. “He did not need to save this slave’s life, but he did. This slave owes his lordship her life, and she should not speak like this.” 

Yunchang reached out. Gently, he cupped her face with both hands, and drew her close. “None but this nobody will know,” he said. “This nobody’s lips are sealed.” 

“Er-ge,” Qilan said. She raised her hand to touch his wrist, and then dropped it back down to her lap. “Do you promise?”

Nodding, Yunchang gave her a small, wry smile. “Guan Yu is a liar,” he said. “But Yunchang keeps his promises.”

She let out a soft, burbling laugh, likely caught by surprise. Yunchang felt the same way: his courtesy name had settled around him tighter and softer than the name given to him by his family, and he knew it was because of the coils Mengde’s tongue had made when giving it voice. “His lordship came to save this slave,” Qilan said, every word halting. “He came to her house, and he took her and lifted her to his horse.”

Her hands were trembling. Yunchang took them, and held on tight.

“When this slave pleaded for him to save her parents, too, he said that there was no space for them on the horse.” Her voice hitched, and she brought their joined hands up to press against her face. “His lordship said, there is no room for them in his army.” 

Those words were true, Yunchang knew: the Liu army had space only for the generals, the soldiers, and the generals’ wives and concubines. The elderly and the crippled must be left behind, for they could do little to aid the efforts of the soldiers, and thus whatever provisions they took up would be nothing but a waste that put them in danger of loss. 

Yet none of that mattered to a woman who had lost her parents; who had to watch as her village was devoured by flames, and her family and all that she had known with it. Yet none of that mattered, for Yunchang’s elder brother could have brought them away from the village, and installed them in a neighbouring one instead. Yet none of that mattered, for such thinking was cruel, was dishonourable.

Running her thumb over his knuckles and hers both, Qilan gave a hitching sob, her voice broken like a ship wrecked by storms. “If he thought there is no place in his army for this slave’s parents, even temporarily…” She lifted her eyes, and her tears-filled eyes met his. “He would not see any place for her brother either.”

Yunchang closed his eyes. “I know,” he sighed out. “Da-ge’s bond is with Guan Yu, and Guan Yu is a lie.”

When they had stood underneath the peach tree, they had shared a knife. His elder brother had opened his vein first, followed by Yunchang, then his younger brother Yide. The order, and the blood smeared upon their skins and spilled upon the soil to be soaked up by the roots of the tree, solidified their bond. 

But only those who stood upon the same ground were allowed to wield the same blade; only those whose feet were planted on the same kind of soil could own blood capable of mixing in this way. One such as Yunchang… one such as he and Qilan, mere omegas, they stood only on sand, forever shifting beneath their weight, with their hands seen as too weak for knives. 

Mengde’s words: _You are the greatest warrior this realm had ever seen._ Mengde’s voice: _You have done so despite the precepts that stated your place to be as far apart from the battlefield as a body could be._

His eyes burned. He blinked the tears away.

“Then _why_?” Qilan asked, the question bursting out of her.

“Because it is the righteous thing,” He ducked his head, staring at their joined hands before he pulled away. “It would not be proper to ask you to lie that I am dead; not when staying by Cao Mengde’s side would mean that da-ge would know, very soon, that I had betrayed him.” _And you had become undutiful, and lied to him_ , he did not say. But the half-born words hovered in the air between them anyway. __  
  
Taking a deep breath, he clenched his hands on his lap so he would not touch his abdomen. His body ached. The poison in his bones had turned to ice, creeping, spreading, through his blood. He was so cold. He was walking away from the one source of heat he knew.

“And he would have me fight for him, sao-zi,” he said. “He would have me _kill_ for him.”

“Is that not a good thing?” Yunchang’s head jerked up. Qilan was smiling, but the curves of her mouth were twisted with bitterness. “I wish there is someone who will ask me to kill for them.”

“ _What_?”

“Er-ge,” Qilan said, and her hand brushed his jaw, on the loose strands of hair that had fallen free from his usual tail. “It means that I am capable of such things. That Qilan is more than a slave.”

Yunchang’s breath caught in his throat. Through all these years of lying to himself, he had deliberately turned away from the plight of those like him. He had held on tightly to the handle of his glaive, keeping it always with him for reasons he thought he never understood. But he did. His heart knew, even if his mind did not acknowledge it: his glaive was the only thing that kept him from the fate of those like him; the fate that his body and the precepts had set out for him, long before he was born.

“There is no reason for you to return with me, er-ge,” Qilan said. She sniffed hard, once, and wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand before her smile softened on him. “You can plead with Lord Cao to not ask you to kill for him, I’m sure.”

“He is not an easy man to dissuade,” Yunchang said.

Her smile turned wry. “I dislike Lord Cao greatly, er-ge, but even the blind can see how enamoured he is with you.” Reaching up, her fingers brushed over his jaw once more. “Do you not see the power you can wield if you return? The life you can make for yourself?”

“I don’t,” Yunchang stuttered. He took a deep breath, and shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“The fates of those like us rest in the hands of those who hold our chains,” Qilan said, her eyes faraway. “When the smoke of infatuation blinds their eyes, their grips loosen, and we have more freedom.” 

Before Yunchang could deny it, she laughed, bitter-sounding and hoarse. “It has been weeks since I have seen Liu da-ge,” she said, and tipped her head up to look at the roof of the carriage. “By now he has surely forgotten the reasons why he desired me, so there is naught left for me than to become the slave of Lady Mi and Lady Gan, forever crawling for scraps at their feet.”

“You—” Yunchang started, but his voice died.

Qilan’s fingertips brushed over his cheek, so briefly. “Do you know why I wished that you love me?” she asked, and her smile had turned crooked once more. “If I am yours instead of his, er-ge, then perhaps… Perhaps I would never need to refer to myself as a slave again.”

“So you were selfish, too,” he finally found the voice to say.

Shoulders shaking, Qilan shifted closer, leaning her head against the curve of his shoulder. “I know you hold honour and duty close, er-ge,” she said, voice soft. “I know that your pride is held so tight to you that it forms the column of your spine. But I…” 

Yunchang closed his eyes. But the knives of her words sank between his ribs, nonetheless:

“My hands are too weak for the weight of a blade upon which I could write such ideals,” she said. “And the cage I have been put in is far too small for them to fit while I can still breathe.”

“Sao-zi,” Yunchang said. His arm wrapped around her shoulders, gripping tight.

“Please don’t waste your grief on me, er-ge,” Qilan said. “I have long grown used to my station in life.” She lifted her head, and gave him a wry smile. “While to you it is still so new.”

“It should not have been new,” Yunchang said. He swallowed hard. “In all my years of chasing honour and justice, I have done injustice to you. I have dishonoured you.”

“No, er-ge,” Qilan said, her mouth twitching upwards. She took his hands, running her thumbs over his knuckles, over the stark-standing bones. “You have trained your hands to be strong enough to bend the bars of your own cage. And there is no strength great enough to bend that of all like us.”

Yunchang closed his eyes. Here, at the back of his lids, engraved: A man, in full court regalia, standing in front of him, leading the Emperor by the hand to the throne, fussing over his cushions and cloths like he would a child. The same man, waving a hand, his voice rough and impatient, and generals and officials all standing when they had not listened to the Emperor’s words. 

Cao Mengde, his back straight and hands loose at his side, standing with ease and not pride, as an entire village knelt for him. 

Bared fangs and spun web and flashing teeth. All for his sake.

“Perhaps not mine,” Yunchang said, and his shoulders shook for surely this was irony, for he thought he walked towards righteousness but knew now he was walking away from it. “But I know a man.”

Qilan blinked. But before she could speak, Yunchang’s reflexes kicked in, and he pressed a hand over her mouth. Her eyes widened, and he shook his head. 

The forests had been silent in the way of trees: with the rustling of wind through leaves, the twittering of birds, and the scuttling of small animals amidst the tall, wild grass. But now… now, there was nothing.

There. _Now_.

Yunchang slammed his hand between Qilan’s shoulderblades, shoving her down to the floor of the carriage and following immediately, covering her body with his own. 

Just in time: arrows pierced through the thin wooden walls, some embedding themselves onto the silk-covered floor right in front of them, the others flying out of the carriage. The horse shrieked, loud in its panic.

Exchanging a glance with Qilan, he saw the fear in her eyes. He squeezed her shoulder. “Stay down,” he hissed. “Hide.”

He waited for her to nod before he crawled towards to curtains. There, he waited, head cocked as he listened for sound. Out of the corner of his vision, he could see Qilan following his advice, tucking herself beneath the bench that they were sitting on, still flat on her stomach because she could too easily be shot if she sat up.

“Sao-zi,” Yunchang said, and he knew his smile was bitter. “This is why we can only head forward.” If there was no room for righteousness and honour when caged, then there was none either when assassins held blades to their throats. The choice here was not between two forms of selfishness, but in having a choice at all in the first place.

He glanced at Qilan. She was trying to not tremble, clearly terrified, and knew that he still had far more of a choice than she did.

The arrows had stopped firing. Yunchang drew his legs up, and threw himself out of the carriage. Rolling on the grass, he headed towards the side where he had strapped his glaive. The horse neighed again as more arrows headed in his direction, and he pulled the leather covering the blade open with his teeth even as he ducked underneath the carriage.

Once armed, he headed to hunting the assassins. He ignored the aches of his body. He ignored the niggling thought that perhaps, at the end of this short road, he would find Mengde once more waiting for him.

He ignored how much he wanted to look forward to it.

***

“Did you mean all that you said?” Yunchang asked. They were lying side by side, still tied together. Mengde had offered his arm for Yunchang’s head to rest upon, but he, pride a searing-bright beacon, preferred the hollow-wood pillow instead.

Mengde had no need to ask which words he was uncertain about; if he tried, he could still taste the bitter salt of the tears on the tip of his tongue. Not even the sweetness of Yunchang’s slick and submission could erase it. But the answer was easy, nonetheless: “I do.” He paused, and caressed the curve of a cheek with the back of his hand. “It was not what I thought when I first saw you. Neither was it my thought when I came for you.”

“It wasn't?” Yunchang blinked.

“No,” Mengde said, and chuckled low and soft from the depths of his chest. Pressed together as tightly as they were, he knew Yunchang would feel it. “Men are easily fooled by assumptions, and I am but a man in the end.”

“When, then?”

Stroking his thumb over Yunchang’s lip, Mengde said, “When I felt your body calling for mine.” He removed the finger and replaced it with his mouth, leaving a kiss long and lingering. “I saw you sprawled upon this bed, and touched you, and all that you had gone through unfolded in front of my selfishly-blind eyes.”

Yunchang’s lids lowered, and he let out a breath that shuddered like a sigh, but was too choked with pleasure and satiated need to be so. “Tell me then: how am I to believe in your words when you had hold of them for so brief a time?” 

There were many answers Mengde could give. First, Yunchang was true jade for believing that decisions must be polished with thought for a long time before being presented. Second, that Mengde knew himself, and the words came not from impulse but the still-hollow, still-aching space in his chest. But neither was the answer Yunchang required. So Mengde said, instead, “Because they were naught but the truth.”

He caught the hitch in Yunchang’s breath with his thumb on his throat.

These he did not voice either: _Do you truly not see your own beauty, your own worth? Do you not understand that I look at you as a parched man at a stream, a freezing man at a hearth, and a man who split open a rock expecting nothing but grey but finding instead shimmering green?_ For those answers he already had. Neither did he protest that he was not lying. He, a snake; he, a spider; he, a fox: all three showed the silver on their tongue when they darted it out to protest that it was made of still metal.

Instead, he stayed silent, and waited. Yunchang’s eyes had fallen closed, but his breathing was too shallow for sleep and there was still shadows of tension in his shoulders.

“Why, then?” Yunchang asked eventually, his eyes still shut. “Why try so hard to get me to stay?”

“Would you rather the truth, Yunchang, or a comforting lie?”

One beautifully-shaped eye cracked open, and Yunchang raised an eyebrow. “Did you not chide me for wasting breath?”

Mengde smiled, wry, and he shifted on the bed. He focused on the rustling of the cloth even as he admitted to himself that he was merely stalling for time. “I did,” he nodded. His fingers tangled in Yunchang’s long hair, easing out some of the tangles caused by their exertions. He took a deep breath.

These were words that would form the knife to cut the threads he had woven with his own hands, leaving none but Liu Bei's behind: “The breath you take while wielding your blade is not merely with admiration.” His smile widened, turning sharp-chilled at the edges. “But tinged with blood as well.”

Yunchang’s lips parted, but no words escaped. Only a breath, long and heavy, and tension stitching back to those limbs that were so loose and pliant just a moment before. “Who?”

Carding his fingers through the dark strands, Mengde looked at him. Surely this was too intimate a scene for war and politics; surely this room should have kept out the blood and suffering that existed behind these doors. But the doors were made only of paper and wood. But, as surely as the tilt of Yunchang’s head towards his hand, this had always been precisely what he had been wanting, what he had been waiting for: an equal who could walk alongside him in war, and with hands both strong and gentle enough to build a home with his own.

“Yuan Shao has two hundred thousand soldiers in his army,” Mengde said, his voice quiet despite himself. “Twenty thousand of them should do.” Then, before Yunchang could make to speak, he brushed his thumb over his lips again. “Then, after, a meeting with Liu Bei.”

There was no need to say any more: Yunchang knew what he meant. Liu Bei was under siege from Yuan Shao: if Yunchang killed those soldiers under the banner of Cao, then Liu Bei would be free, and he would, too, owe Mengde his life. A life debt was one heavy enough that Liu Bei could not carry it along with his supposed claim to his throne; the only justification for his rebellion.

Twenty thousand lives, and the sacrifice of his elder brother’s ambitions: the price Yunchang must pay.

“So many?” A soft, choked whisper.

A soft heart beat beneath that jade. Mengde leaned in, pressing his lips to Yunchang’s temple. “Twenty thousand soldiers to save the lives of millions,” he murmured. “For the sake of peace.”

“Peace under _your_ rule,” Yunchang said, but he did not pull away from his touch. His hand came up, fingers tugging at a rough strand of Mengde’s hair. His eyes opened, and his smile was crooked. “Do you still desire this of me?”

“Did I not chide you for wasting breath?” Mengde returned. 

Yunchang tilted his head back. His lips did not thin, but parted instead, but the arch of his neck had writ grief stark in the air, and the curl of fingers heralded the snap of Mengde’s strings.

“If I refuse,” Yunchang said, “will you still let me go?” 

The breaths he took between every word was the tearing of paper, the breaking of wood. Mengde leaned in, touching their foreheads together even as he closed his eyes. He could still feel the clench of Yunchang’s insides around his knot. He could feel his warm breath on his own lips. Yet, at the same time, he was a thousand miles away.

“Water can be dammed, but its beauty would be dimmed,” he said, and though his voice did not tremble, the world seemed to shake in tandem with his seizing fingers in that rich, dark hair. “And I am not a selfish man.”

Yunchang made a sound, twisting and hoarse; a sob from a man who had never gave himself the ease for tears. His head bowed, burying his face into Mengde’s shoulder, and he gripped so tight on his arm that Mengde knew there would be bruises in the shape of his fingers in the morning.

It brought him no comfort. Bruises on the body, Mengde knew, would never last as long as those on the soul.

“I wish to believe you,” Yunchang said. “Yet there were blades that chased me.” Mengde scraped his fingers down his scalp, down to his neck. Not soothing, but leaving marks of his own. Another shudder, and Yunchang curled up even further into him. “I wish to believe you to be a terrible man.” His breath shuddered out of him. “But the blades said, the imperial edict could not be disobeyed.”

The Emperor. Little Bohe who only had a home because Mengde granted it to him. Mengde was not surprised: the boy was full-grown by now, and it was long past time for him to try to wrest power from Mengde’s hands. This, he knew, was entirely predictable.

None of those thoughts staved off the flames that licked into life within him, biting at his nerves.

“Despite what you think of me,” Mengde said, “my hands have never touched the imperial seal.”

When Yunchang turned his face up, he gave him a wry smile, the back of his hand once more tracing the line of his cheek. “I had not lied when I said, I serve the Emperor, and the Emperor does not serve me.” 

Yunchang’s eyes shuttered. “Will he try again to stop me, if I go?”

“He will,” Mengde confirmed. He knew Bohe; knew the stubbornness of a boy ignorant of his own capabilities and arrogant about a mandate of heaven that had clearly long run out. “But, Yunchang…” Trailing his fingers over the curve of that smooth jaw, Mengde smiled, baring teeth. “The Emperor make-believes he has a hound at his door, but, in truth, he is a wolf.” 

Blinking once, Yunchang’s eyes went wide. Over a moment, he ducked his head down, and the warm breath of his chuckles ghosted over Mengde’s skin and sank into his bones.

“A snake, a spider, a fox, and now a wolf,” he said. His eyes shone so bright even in the dimming light of the sun from the open slat. “I am now tied to a veritable menagerie.”

Mengde laughed despite himself. Shifting on the bed, he cupped Yunchang’s face with both hands, leaning forward to brush their mouths together. “So you have,” he murmured. His fingers trailed down Yunchang’s neck, past his hair, skimming over his ribs, and paused at the inward dip of his waist. “So you have.”

The heart he thought did not exist was soaring in his chest, but Mengde ignored it, focusing on the parting on Yunchang’s lips, the quiet half-hum half-moan that trembled in the space between their bodies. Placing his palm on Yunchang’s shoulder, he spread his fingers open, and held them there until he felt Yunchang nod.

He pushed just once, and rolled to follow until Yunchang was once more on his back, and Mengde above him. The clench of his insides around Mengde’s knot had eased as the flesh subsided, and Mengde threw his head back to get his hair out of his face.

“Will you allow yourself to be tied once more?”

Yunchang’s eyes focused on him. He tilted his head, and there was a light in his eyes that Mengde had never seen. His lips curved upwards, and he hooked a leg over Mengde’s hip. A single, rocking thrust, and Mengde bit off his gasp, his head falling backwards as pleasure exploded at the back of his eyes.

“What, Cao Mengde,” Yunchang said, “do you think?”

Shadows at the edges of his eyes. The white-knuckled tight grip on the sheets. Deep-carved lines at the sides of his mouth despite the smile.

Despite himself, Mengde laughed. He leaned over, framing Yunchang’s face with his fingers before he kissed him. “I think,” he said, “you are flame and water, you are silk and bamboo, and you are jade.” He picked up a heavy strand of hair, and brought it to his mouth for a slow, lingering kiss, his eyes never leaving Yunchang’s.

“But there is still some steel within you, hard-dented, and I will melt you and turn you into gold instead.” 

“To match your silver tongue?” Yunchang asked. His chest heaved with shallow, rasping breaths.

“Yes,” Mengde said. Smile widening, he slid his hand down Yunchang’s ribs, letting his calluses catch on the nipples just to feel him shudder and twitch. 

“It is fitting.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The entire scene between Qilan and Yunchang was difficult as hell to write because the way they spoke to each other is entirely dependent on pronouns. Chinese pronouns, both for other people and for the self, are a statement of one’s position in the world. Qilan referring to herself as “this slave” is using 奴婢 (nu bi), meaning ‘slave,’ which is literally the pronoun that most women in Ancient China used to refer to themselves, and Yunchang when he uses “this nobody” is using 关某 (Guan mou), which can be literally translated to “this nobody from Guan family.” Both of them used these pronouns within the movie itself.
> 
> To translate the English back into Chinese (I wrote the entire dialogue in my head in Chinese, yes):  
> Qilan: “This slave owes his lordship her life.”  奴婢对大人有救命之恩。  
> Yunchang: “None but this nobody will know.”  除了关某没人所知。 
> 
> Insert more of my usual yelling about trying to translate Chinese and English and how I’m starting to hate English for not having differentiated pronouns.


	4. 玉不琢, “jade left unpolished”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The moment when I completely _forgot_ about posting, omg. This is a day late, and I'm so sorry. Anyway!
> 
>  **Notes:** Liu Bei is the oldest brother out of the three, and his courtesy name is 玄德 Xuande. Zhang Fei is the youngest, 义德 Yide. Both of the “de” has the same characters as Mengde’s “de”; it’s a really common character to be part of the name, mostly because it means virtue. ‘Er-di’ is 二弟, meaning ‘second younger brother,’ and is the term that Guan Yu uses for himself when addressing Liu Bei, and which Liu Bei uses for him.
> 
> The courtesy name of Zhang Liao, Cao Cao’s second-in-command in the movie, is 文远 Wenyuan.
> 
>  **Warnings:** More depictions of a character calling themselves a slave. Also: lots and lots of politics in this chapter without porn. Also, mentions of mpreg, though it's not explicitly depicted in this chapter.

His elder brother had been staring at him for the past week. He knew the reason why: he was reminded of it every single morning as he bent over the chamber pot, heaving; he could not help but think of it every time his younger sworn brother Yide cocked his head as he walked past, brows furrowing in confusion as his nostrils flared.

Now it was evening, his head was clear again, and the air itself no longer threatened bile in his throat. Now it was his brother’s door that turned his tongue’s tip sour as he splayed his hand against the wood and paper. He stood a deep breath and gave himself a moment to suffer in shame over the torn shambles his honour and pride had become. Slowly, very slowly, he allowed his hand to drift downwards until it was pressed against his stomach.

Yunchang had left Mengde behind, but Mengde had stayed with him, nonetheless; a presence that lingered in his body. He knew he should regret those three days. He knew he should regret this child. 

He could not.

Another breath. He raised his hand, and knocked.

“Is that you, er-di?” His elder brother did not wait for him to reply. “Come in already.”

Sliding the door open, Yunchang stepped inside. He closed it behind him, and hissed a shallow exhale through his teeth before he turned around. Clenching one hand into a fist, he slapped the palm of the other against it, and bowed.

“Er-di pays his respects to da-ge.”

“Why the formality?” A low chuckle. “Lift your head, er-di, and come sit with me.”

“Yes, da-ge,” Yunchang said. He raised his eyes.

Qilan was sitting there, next to his brother. His arm was wrapped around her waist, pressing her tight to his side.

“This slave should leave,” Qilan murmured. Her eyes did not meet Yunchang’s. “This is a conversation between warriors.”

“Stay,” his elder brother said. He gave her a smile, soft at the edges, and patted her knee. “This is a conversation between family, Qilan, and er-di here is your brother as well.”

Her lips thinned for a moment before she smiled, and nodded. 

Yunchang walked forward. It should be ridiculous: he loved his older brother, and he was loyal to him, and he knew the man to be kind, and just, and righteous. Why, then, did every approaching step feel as if he was heading towards his doom? Why could he not convince himself to take the seat beside his elder brother, and could only stand there, staring straight ahead?

It was difficult to talk around a closing throat, but still he forced himself to say, “You wish to talk to me.”

“Yes,” his elder brother said. His eyes were narrowed upon Yunchang now, head tilted to the side. 

This man knew him far too well to not understand his tells. Yunchang closed his eyes. Even as his elder brother said, “Please, explain to me,” he was falling to his knees, hands flat on the ground as he lowered his head.

“Da-ge,” he said. “I have let you down.”

A long, heavy sigh. “Er-di,” his brother said. Then his hand was on Yunchang’s shoulder, a heavy weight, squeezing and squeezing. Yunchang swallowed back a gasp. “As your commander, I order you to lie to me.”

“I cannot,” he said. He refused to let his hands clench into fists; refused to allow himself to have even that to hold on to because he does not deserve it. He squeezed his eyes tighter shut so he would not have to see his brother’s shoes “I have lied to you long enough, da-ge.”

“Then why can’t you continue lying?” his elder brother said, words heavy with the beginnings of grief. “I don’t want to lose you.”

The words were a knife in between Yunchang’s ribs, slicing straight into his heart. His breath stuttered out of him. His brother – no, Lord Liu, it must be Lord Liu, for they both knew now and the illusion of their brotherhood could only be kept when they pretended that the blood they mixed on the soil beneath the peach tree was that of equals – was kind. 

Yunchang would prefer him to be cruel.

“There is no honour in lying,” Yunchang said, his voice shivery-tight.

“Do you treasure honour more than your brotherhood to me?” Lord Liu demanded.

He could not hide any longer. Yunchang allowed himself to be pulled backwards, until he was sitting on his calves with his head raised. His brother was on one knee in front of him, his brows furrowed. He should not have done that. He should not have knelt for the sake of one as lowly as Yunchang; as one who was nothing but a shell covered up by lies.

Meeting those eyes, Yunchang forced himself to not flinch at the sorrow there. “My betrayal of you is double.” He took a deep breath and, slow and deliberate, slipped his hand below his body to press it over his stomach. “This child is not merely mine, but Cao Cao’s as well.”

Hands slamming down on his shoulders. Lord Liu pulled him forward, and he was shaking his head. “Do you think I do not already suspect that?” he asked, his voice trembling. “You were with him for _weeks_ , er-di. Do you think I didn’t suspect that he might attempt something terrible to keep you by his side?”

 _No_ , Yunchang wanted to say. No. Mengde did not… he did not…

But before he could speak, his elder brother continued, “You might be the only beta amongst us three, but do you think I am such a fool that I do not know the dangers you face, just because Yide and I never had to face the same?”

“I am—” Yunchang started. 

“Do not,” Lord Liu hissed. His nails bit through the layers of cloth of Yunchang’s robes, sinking into the skin. “Do not continue!”

“Da-ge, I am not—” 

“Stop speaking!”

“Throughout all of these years, I have lied—” 

_“General Guan Yu, I, your commander, order you to stop!_ ”

Yunchang stopped.His chest heaved for breath.

“Stop,” Lord Liu said. His voice was tremulous, so terribly close to breaking. “Lie to me. Please. Lie to me.”

“Please, my lord,” Yunchang lowered his head, but he could not escape from the sight of Lord Liu flinching at the use of the title. “Throughout all of these years you have known me, I have lied, and I cannot anymore.” His hands clenched tight on top of his thighs. “I am not a beta.”

 _I am not your brother. I cannot be_. 

“Years ago, I have pledged my loyalty to you,” Yunchang said, every word like dragging stones from his drying throat. “I have sworn to fulfil your ambitions to right the wrongs of this world; I swore to bring you to the throne that should be yours. In doing so, I have done you an injustice.”

Lowering his head, he allowed the momentum of the movement to pull him down until all he could see was the floor.

“That vow has been made under false pretences,” he continued, making believe that he was speaking to the ground instead of Lord Liu. “For that, I have let you down. There are no apologies that could ever suffice.”

Footsteps. A heavy sigh. The slight creak of wood and rustle of cloth as Lord Liu dropped back down to his chair. Silence sat between them for long moments, broken up only by the sound of breathing.

“For long years, I have been so proud,” Lord Liu said finally. “There is a man I know, a man of righteousness and honour, and he had seen me fit enough to swear his loyalty to me. He had seen me fit enough to call me his elder brother.”

A laugh, bitter and coarse. Yunchang did not tremble; he did not deserve to.

“Now I regret my pride,” Lord Liu continued. “For I wish that you had a little less honour, so you might continue to lie to me, and walk by my side.”

“My lord.”

It was not Yunchang’s voice; it was Qilan’s. His breath hitched as the sound of her rapid footsteps reached his ears; as the tremors of the ground as she fell onto her knees next to him rang inside his bones.

“This slave knows that it is not her place to interfere with the matters between brothers, for she is but a concubine, lowly and ignorant,” Qilan said. “This slave understands that she is speaking out of turn, but will my lord in his magnanimity allow her some time to speak on her behalf of her er-ge?”

“Xiaolan,” Lord Liu said, sounding surprised. After a moment, he sighed. “Go ahead.”

“My lord is kind,” Qilan said, and Yunchang winced at the sound of her forehead meeting wood. “This slave sees that her great lord is in a dilemma, for he loves his brother, and does not wish to lose him. But this slave has also seen with her own unworthy eyes the feats that her er-ge is capable of, and she does not understand why her er-ge’s service so far is now judged to be unworthy.”

When Lord Liu let out another heavy breath, Yunchang could feel Qilan trembling next to him. “This slave apologises for her stupidity,” she said. “She thanks her great lord for his patience, and kneels in awe of his wisdom.”  
_  
The fates of those like us rest in the hands of those who hold our chains_ , Qilan had told him. Yunchang had thought he knew what she meant, but now he realised he did not. He could never learn to speak like this. If the fates had been less kind to him, if he had a heat earlier and could not have denied his status for so long… He did not know what he would have become. He could not imagine where he would have ended up.

Buried, most likely. Or, worse still: his knees and pride in tatters from long years of never standing. 

“It is not that his prior service is now judged worthless, Xiaolan,” Lord Liu said. There was another rustle of cloth; most likely him crossing his legs to lean his elbows on his knees so he could properly look at them. “It is that it could not be allowed to continue.”

“This slave does not understand why,” Qilan said. “She has seen er-ge’s martial abilities with her own unworthy eyes—” 

“You said that already,” Lord Liu said, and he sounded amused. There was a tap on his foot on the ground, and Yunchang could feel the click of her teeth snapping together as she silenced herself again.

“Do you know the justifications behind my claim to the throne, Xiaolan?” Lord Liu asked. Even before Qilan could even begin to answer, he laughed again. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

“My lord is wise,” Qilan murmured.

“There has been corruption for years amidst the imperial court, and the country has splintered into pieces. The common people have suffered for long years without respite.” Another creak of wood. Footsteps. 

He was pacing. Yunchang found himself squeezing his eyes shut, his breath coming faster, as if his lungs had suddenly shrunk and he could not take in as much air as before.

“I claim the mandate of heaven through my blood,” Lord Liu continued. “I claim that the current Emperor, and all those around him, do not act in a way that is righteous, and hence they have lost that very mandate.” He paused. “If I claim so, Xiaolan, then I must behave in a way that is righteous. I must behave in ways that ensure that I deserve having that mandate fall upon my shoulders. As such, I cannot have people by my side who flout the precepts and teachings, the bones of ourselves, right beside me.”

“My lord,” Qilan started, but Yunchang had enough.

“Sao-zi,” he interrupted her. Raising his head, he unfolded his body from his kowtowing position. He sat back on his calves. He ignored Lord Liu as he reached out for her, hands on her shoulders as he nudged her to lift her head.

When she did, he gave her a smile. “Thank you,” he said. 

He waited until she returned his smile – tremulous and small, but a smile nonetheless – before he stood up.

“It was not through righteousness that you have tried to claim the throne, my lord,” Yunchang said, unfolding his legs to stand. “It is through battle. It is through war.”

“Only because—” 

Yunchang held up his hand. When Lord Liu fell silent, he knew it was out of shock instead of obedience, but it worked well enough for his purpose.

“We have won through war from the strength of my blade, of Yide’s blade, of the blood of warriors who fell for your cause,” he continued. “We have won this far due to Kongming’s brilliant stratagems. None of that, my lord, has aught to do with righteousness.” His hands were not threatening to tremble. His spine was straight. Yunchang looked into Lord Liu’s eyes, and he said, “Perhaps I might claim that your righteousness shines through you, bright as a star, and draws strong warriors and clever strategists to your side. I would agree with them.”

Where were these words coming from? Yunchang did not know; could not even grasp their source. But perhaps it was Mengde’s lingering presence within him. Perhaps it was Qilan’s eyes, wide and wondering, fixed upon him.

“But… Lord Liu,” he continued, waving a hand towards Qilan, “You have asked for me to sit beside you to speak to you, and yet she must kneel. Is there righteousness in that?”

Lord Liu’s eyes furrowed. “I do not grasp your meaning. You are my brother. She is my concubine.”

Yunchang did not lower his eyes. He did not clench his fists. He merely said, “My body has not changed, my lord. From the time when we swore brotherhood underneath the peach tree, and right now, my body has remained the same.”

When Lord Liu still looked as if he did not understand, Yunchang nodded to himself. He turned his back. Then he reached upwards, and loosened the cord that held his hair back in its usual tail. As the strands fell, he swept them towards one shoulder. His hands were clumsy as he braided his hair, and he knew he did not do a presentable job of it. But that, he supposed, was fitting as well.

He turned back around. His hair was no longer in the style suited for warriors, but one for concubines awaiting their lords in the bedroom. Lord Liu’s sharp intake of breath was a cold breeze in the closed room. Yunchang placed both hands on his hips, and he bent his knees, and lowered his head. He gave Lord Liu the greeting given by omegas to Alphas; likely the clumsiest he had ever seen.

“If you place my glaive in my hand right now, my lord,” he said, voice barely above a murmur, “I can show you that I have not changed.”

“You,” Lord Liu started. “What are you—”

“A week ago, my lord,” Yunchang interrupted him, head still lowered. “We had a battle with Yuan Shao. Do you remember how many soldiers I killed, then?”

“Hundreds,” Lord Liu said.

“Three hundred and fifty-five,” Yunchang confirmed. He lifted his eyes, and deliberately shifted his hands until they were placed over his stomach. “During that battle, this child was already growing beneath my heart.” 

_Thump_. A single, heavy step. Lord Liu had stumbled backwards. Yunchang could find no pleasure in his victory. He was not surprised; he had never taken any joy in winning.

“You asked me to lie for you, my lord, so I could stand by your side,” Yunchang continued. “To lie is to lack righteousness. But, my lord… I have already told you: my betrayal is double. For me to keep up the pretence, you will have me kill Cao Mengde’s child.” Lord Liu’s sharp intake of breath was, Yunchang knew, not about the death of that child, but the name Yunchang had used for Mengde. Lord Liu’s words, long ago: wives and children were like sleeves, easily broken and easily repaired; brothers were like limbs, once lost, could never be regained.

Once, Yunchang had been assured by those words. Now he knew his own selfishness.

“So you wish to leave, then,” Lord Liu said.

Yunchang had been right in feeling no triumph: there was none to be had in the first place. He closed his eyes. “Guan Yu is the sworn brother of Lord Liu Bei. But Guan Yu is a lie, and there is only Yunchang left.” He took a deep breath.

“As you said, my lord, Guan Yunchang has no place by your side. Not if you wish to remain righteous.”

Lord Liu ran a hand over his face. His lips quirked up into a familiar lopsided smile. “Are you absolutely certain that you will not lie for my sake?”

“I am,” Yunchang said, and surprised himself with the steadiness of his voice.

Nodding, Lord Liu headed back to his seat. He jerked his head in Qilan’s direction, and she rose up to stand as well, half-stumbling to his side. “You will be returning to Cao Cao, I presume.”

“Yes.”

“That is treachery,” Lord Liu said, and once more Yunchang wished he would be cruel, for the kindness in his voice now sharpened the blade driven into his heart. “But for the sake of your prior service, you have three days before my soldiers come for you.”

On his way back to Lord Liu’s side, three months ago, Mengde had stopped the hounds from dogging his heels. Now, returning to Mengde, he wondered who would be the one to stop the blades aimed at his throat.

He let out a breath, and bowed his head. “Thank you, my lord.”

Before he turned, he met Qilan’s eyes. She was sitting next to Lord Liu, her hands folded in her lap, and she shook her head. In that one moment, Yunchang could see the chains upon her. But, strange upon strange, he could not see where they led. They seemed to sink deep into the ground, without edges, without ends. 

There was still so much he could not understand.

“Sao-zi,” he said. “I am taking my leave.”

“Have a safe journey.” She paused, eyes darting to Lord Liu, before she tipped her chin up and said. “Er-ge.”

Yunchang nodded. He turned to Lord Liu once more, and slipped his knife – the knife with his symbol, his very own symbol with permission granted to him by this man – out of his sleeves. He knelt and placed it on the ground, knowing from the sharp-loud hitch of Lord Liu’s breath that he understood what it meant; what it was that Yunchang was now giving up.

What, he did not allow himself to think, Lord Liu had _made_ him give up.

Straightening, he ducked his head down, and raised his hands. One clenched into his fists, and the open palm of the other slapping against it. A greeting between brothers. The last they would ever exchange.

As he headed for the door, he said, “Your Lordship, will you be so kind as to convey my farewells to Lord Zhang?”

“I will,” Lord Liu said, his voice grave. “Though I do not think he will understand your reasons.”

 _Neither do you, my lord, though your pride is far too great for you to admit it._

Placing his hand on the door, Yunchang slid it open. “Thank you. I will take my leave now.” He turned his head. Over his shoulder, past the shield of the braid lying on it, he met Liu Bei’s eyes, and gave him a small, lopsided smile.

“Da-ge.”

He stepped out of the room, and closed the door behind him.

***

“My lord.”

Wenyuan at the door, head bowed and hands clasped together in front of him. Anticipation coiled tight around him, a snake baring his fangs, ready to snap. Mengde shifted the brush in his hand, balancing it on top of his fingers. 

“Well?”

“Word has arrived,” Wenyuan said. He lifted his head, and his lips were twisted upwards into a grin wide enough to show the canines at the corners of his mouth, glinting in the sunlight. “Guan Yu is at the gates.”

“Has he been informed of my orders?” Mengde asked. The ink had gathered on the tip of the brush, and he swept it across the document he was perusing – the draft of an edict – and streaked messy darkness over the neatly printed words. 

Then he placed the brush back on its stand, and swept out of the room.

Falling in step easily beside him, Wenyuan shook his head. He proffered a piece of paper from his sleeve, holding it out to Mengde, who ignored it in favour of giving his General a sideways glance. “There was no need. It seems that he was already demanding to see you.”

“ _Seems_ ,” Mengde repeated, dragging out the word.

“Yes, my lord,” Wenyuan said. “If I may dare to venture…” He chuckled at Mengde’s impatient wave. “The trip had been difficult on him.”

Mengde narrowed his eyes. He took the message from between Wenyuan’s outstretched fingers, but the words written on it – small and cramped – did not illuminate anything further.

“The orders _have_ been sent out, haven’t they?” Mengde said slowly.

“They have,” Wenyuan nodded. “Though I suspect that they have not been obeyed.”

Nodding, Mengde folded his hands into his sleeves, hiding his white knuckles from view. He was not surprised, but the taste of disappointment as bitter as always on his tongue. They were approaching the door of the Emperor’s estate in Xu, now, and he could see little Bohe rushing down the other end of the hallway, the beads of his heavy court hat swaying and clacking with each other with every stamp of his sandaled feet.

Beside him, Wenyuan ducked his head down, and raised his clasped fists. Mengde smiled, and inclined his head further down than he should.

“You are in a hurry, Your Majesty.”

Drawing up in front of him, Bohe took a long, deep breath. He nodded to Mengde first, then Wenyuan. His eyes were fixed above their heads as he said, “Few things of import happen here. I simply wished to alleviate my boredom.”

“Nothing dulls a mind more than boredom,” Mengde agreed, careful to not let the twitch of his mouth stretch up too high or too long. He drew a hand out of his sleeves, and swept it towards the door, tilting his palm up with the same move. “Please.”

Bohe stood there for long moments, still staring at the wall behind Mengde and Wenyuan. After long moments, he nodded, and headed out. This time, his steps were slower and steadier; it could almost be called graceful if not for the insistent clacking of his hat’s beads.

They stepped outside into the sunlight just as the call came: “The mansion’s doors are open! Guan Yu begs an audience with Lord Cao, Prime Minister to the Emperor!”

The Emperor lurched forward, his mouth parted. In that one smooth motion, Mengde slammed his arm against his skinny pigeon-like chest, shoving the boy backwards, even as he took a single step. He closed his eyes. A glaive slammed into the ground barely an inch in front of his feet. The sheer force of its landing had tremors running from the ground to the gardens’ trees, making the branches shiver with fear and anticipation.

His Yunchang rode into the Emperor’s gardens on a brown horse with sunrise-red leaves falling around him to herald his entrance. Mengde watched as that strong, seemingly-fragile wrist worked as he pulled the reins back, hard, and the horse stopped right in front of Mengde. 

“Be careful, Your Majesty,” Mengde murmured out of the corner of his mouth. He took a step forward, and wrapped the ink-stained fingers he used to stop the Emperor in his tracks around the wooden staff of the glaive.

“Welcome,” he said. Taking a deep breath, he tightened his grip, and yanked the glaive from its perch in the soil. Swinging it around in his hands – careful to brush the bloodstained blade close enough to Bohe so the boy stumbled backwards – and he slapped the wooden staff against his palm before he held it out with both hands. “General.”

Taking the glaive back with both hands, Yunchang swung it around him. Mengde could hear the shuffling of feet as people backed away, but he stood where he was, in the eye of the storm of leaves and dirt that swirled around their bodies.

The hint of water at the edge of his senses. The tremors of the ground as the glaive slammed once more into it, sending dirt to spray upon Mengde’s shoes. Yunchang dropped to one knee, and pressed a hand over his heart.

“Guan Yunchang begs amnesty from Lord Cao Mengde,” another breeze, this time from the harsh intake of breaths of those around him, “master and ruler of Xu, servant to the Emperor.”

“Should you not ask the Emperor’s amnesty instead?”

Lifting his head, Yunchang’s dark eyes met his own. He did not smile, but there was a light in his eyes that was brighter than the midday sun.

“The permission of an omega’s intended,” he said, voice ringing loud and clear in the gardens now ringed by generals and soldiers and servants all, “supersedes that of an Emperor.”

Mengde knew his cue. Without taking a step back, he loosened the ties of his court robes. He pulled them off him with a wide flourish, and dropped down to one knee himself so he could lay them over Yunchang’s shoulder.

“Wenyuan,” he called to his subordinate, without taking his eyes off Yunchang, “find me my flag.”

“Yes, my lord,” Wenyuan said. There was the smack of flesh against flesh – Wenyuan sketching another salute to him with clasped fists – but Mengde did not pay him any attention. He ignored little Bohe, too, shuffling from foot to foot as he was, right behind him.

His attention was entirely on Yunchang. On the too-pale cheek, streaked as it was with dirt and dried blood, but still jade-beautiful in stark contrast to Mengde’s dark robes. His finger traced one long slash that followed the curve of the bone, and Yunchang’s other knee sank into the ground as he let out a deep sigh, his shoulders curving downwards. Tension poured out of him like water from a broken earthenware pot.

There were tiny leaves scattered around his hair. Mengde ghosted the tip of his fingers over the strands, taking note of how long Yunchang’s hair had grown in the past eighteen weeks since they had parted. There was a particular gloss to the strands, shimmering more golden than the autumn leaves that fell and swirled around him. This close, he could smell his scent: water, clean and sweet; and beneath, the hint of smoke, like a fire long-banked, with few embers stubbornly clinging to life. Mengde took a deep breath, and let the new scent sink into his lungs and write on the insides with wet ink.

“Lord Cao.”

Reaching back, Mengde took the flag from Wenyuan’s hand. He rocked back on one heel, standing, and reached out a hand. Yunchang stood, his eyes still hooded.

The flag was a faded, pale yellow – as clean as all flags were away from the battlefield –and ragged still at the edges. Mengde let it flare open, the edges catching the breeze as he flicked his wrists, before he wrapped that, too, on Yunchang’s shoulders, overlaying his court robes. Then he let go.

Dark robes, and pale yellow above. Stark against the polished lightwood of the glaive’s staff; throwing into even sharper relief the swell of Yunchang’s belly, barely visible beneath the tatters of his own clothes; beneath the dried blood and dirt that he was coated in.

Orders he had sent from Luoyang to Xu, trying to ensure that Yunchang had a safe passage. But Yunchang had come to him now battered and injured, his hands white-knuckled on his glaive and exhaustion writ all over his frame.

Only one man was capable of this.

“Your Majesty,” Mengde said. He looked over his shoulder to little Bohe, and smiled at him like he had when Bohe told him that Yunchang was naught but a tiger who could not be released back into the mountains. “This minister wishes to take a wife.” Bohe tipped his head back. The beads of his hat clacked togethers; the clothes of his office clearly far too heavy for that thin, bird-like neck of his to bear.

“There is no need for you to ask my permission for such a thing,” the boy said. 

Yunchang’s breath against Mengde’s wrist, soft and stuttering. Mengde splayed his hand out between his shoulderblades, giving him a brace to lean against even as he narrowed his eyes at the Emperor. “No,” Mengde said, smile widening further. He stifled a laugh when the little Emperor took a single step backwards. “There isn’t.”

Dressed in Mengde’s clothes, wrapped in a flag with Mengde’s name emblazoned on it: Yunchang was clearly claimed. Willingly, too: both of their intentions declared aloud, and confirmed. There should be little Bohe could do to pry Mengde’s fingers away from him again.

But there was still one thing: there, the Emperor’s eyes flicking to the side, towards the quarters of his wives and concubines.

“The wedding will take place tomorrow,” Mengde said, keeping his voice mild even as he turned his smile crooked enough to flash a canine. “I will now retire with my intended, if you allow me?”

“Of course,” Bohe said. He took a deep breath, and said with exaggerated deliberation: “Cao Mengde.”

Mengde inclined his head. Sliding his hand from Yunchang’s shoulder to the small of his back, he murmured, “Let’s go,” out of the corner of his mouth. 

Yunchang’s glaive lifted from the ground. He leaned against Mengde’s side, and their footsteps fell into tandem together. Mengde chanced a glance sideways, and was pleased to find that Wenyuan needed no orders to follow.

“Tonight then, my lord?”

“We have a wedding to prepare,” Mengde said, mild. He started rubbing circles into the tensed, knotted muscles of Yunchang’s back when he felt him flinch. “There is no need to hurry.”

“There are still some uncertain of your motives,” Wenyuan pointed out.

“Horses with blinders on knew only to charge forward,” Mengde returned, amused. “Ask them, Wenyuan: Do they trust themselves to ride wild? And if not…” He cocked his head. “Whose hands do they prefer on the reins?”

“Steady ones,” Wenyuan returned easily. He laughed, shaking his head. “I will convey your message, my lord.”

They fell silent on the rest of the way to Mengde’s personal quarters. He could feel Yunchang’s tension, and could almost taste upon his tongue the sour twist of his impatience. He rubbed soothing circles on the small of his back, willing him to wait for just a few moments more. Just as he could feel the words filling up Yunchang’s throat, almost enough to burst, they reached the doors of his quarters.

“This one will leave the two of you here, and carry on with his duties,” Wenyuan said. He saluted Mengde again. “Lord Cao.” He turned to Yunchang. There was a smile on his lips, almost too wide to be appropriate, as he placed his hand on his chest, and bowed low. Far lower than needed for a general to give the wife of his lord. 

“Your Majesty,” he murmured. “I take my leave.”

Before Yunchang could react beyond gaping at him, before Mengde could lose control of his laughter, Wenyuan straightened. With his head still lowered, he walked backwards, almost scuttling, until he reached the end of the hallway.

“What—” Yunchang started, but Mengde placed a gentle finger on those plush lips. He nudged the door open with his shoulder, and led Yunchang inside.

His rooms were plainly decorated – mere wood, with few gold and silver trappings, and no jewels. Mengde stepped back, and held out both of his hands. When Yunchang stared at him, he gestured to the glaive with his chin, and Yunchang held it out to him. Taking it, he walked like Wenyuan – without turning his back – until he reached the spot on the wall where he had the servants install two wooden posts. Lifting the glaive – it was _heavy_ , almost the weight of a youth of fifteen, surely – he rested the staff against the notches.

“Did you know I would return?” Yunchang asked.

“I am a strategist,” Mengde said. Smiling, he walked back to Yunchang, and could not help the lightning thrill from shivering through his bones when the warrior – _his_ warrior – did not resist the arm he slipped around his waist. “I prepare for eventualities I hope would come to pass.”

“A strategist,” Yunchang repeated. He tipped his head up to meet Mengde’s eyes. “Was Zhang Liao’s display part of it, too?”

“No,” Mengde told him, perfectly honest. He shifted slightly until he could take Yunchang’s right hand into his own left one. Lifting it, he opened the still-curled fingers, exposing the skin rubbed raw by the wood of the glaive. “Wenyuan is a clever man. He merely took actions that he saw was appropriate.”

“Appropriate,” Yunchang stated, voice flat. His lashes fluttered at the soft kiss Mengde laid upon his palm, but his spine was still unyieldingly straight. “How is that appropriate?”

Mengde raised his eyes. He did not laugh, but merely hummed deep in his throat. “I have waited decades for you, my jade,” he murmured, voice soft as he leaned forward to brush a lingering kiss into Yunchang’s hair. “Does a wolf allow a mere fawn to stand in the way of his heart’s desire?”

Yunchang shuddered. His hand came to clench loosely around Mengde’s sleeve, but his body bent forward, leaning against him. Allowing Mengde to entirely envelope his slim, strong body with his own.

“A coup against the Emperor,” Yunchang whispered against his shoulder. “Do you not fear the wrath of heaven for going against its mandate?”

Even though he knew Yunchang was serious, Mengde could not help but laugh. Like a river strongly-flowing, he would still rather bend at a heavy rock beneath the soil instead of tearing through it.

Pressing a kiss into those blood-speckled strands, he said, “If heaven still wishes to keep the mandate within Bohe’s house, it would’ve sent a more robust representative.” He slipped his hand into Yunchang’s hair, tugging the cord loose so he could card his fingers through the turned-glossy strands. “It is long past time that the fawn recognises the bluntness of its teeth.”

Sighing, Yunchang rested his cheek against Mengde’s shoulder. A tiny intimacy that set more lightning thrumming through his veins.

“For my sake?”

Still so unsure. Mengde pulled back slightly, cupping Yunchang’s jaw and drawing his thumb over his bloodied, hurting cheek.

“Wenyuan named you Empress,” he said, looking deep into those dark eyes. His hand slid down Yunchang’s side before he splayed it over the soft swell of his stomach. “You now carry the heir to the throne.” His lips crooked into a lopsided smile, baring teeth at the corner of his mouth. “Those are not mere ambitions, my jade, but a prediction of the future.”

Yunchang looked at him for a long moment. Then he let out a breath, far too light and sudden to be a sigh, and he shook his head. 

He was smiling, Mengde realised. That was a _laugh_. Not a mere half-swallowed chuckle, but true mirth. “I suppose that you will go to war with Lord Liu as well,” Yunchang said. “And Yuan Shao, too?”

Mengde nodded. “An Empress such as you,” he said, not bothering to hide the twitching of his lips, “deserved the respect of an entire nation instead of merely a few provinces.”

Letting out another one of those strange, light-heavy breaths, Yunchang shook his head. “I suppose it is now my fate to serve as excuse for your ambition.”

To _serve_. Mengde crooked another half-smile as he trailed a line from Yunchang’s hairline down to his jaw. He, arrogant; he, fox and wolf and snake, all with snapping jaws that hinged tight to grip; not until now had he ever thought his hands to be too rough and too small to hold something.

Yet here was precious beauty: jade’s duty, caught in the gleam of night-sky eyes that shone brighter than even the purest stone.

“The line between reason and excuse is thin,” he said. Taking Yunchang’s hand again, he pressed tiny butterfly kisses to the bruised knuckles, looking at him from underneath his lashes. “Though from this one’s perspective, it is certainly more of the former.”

Yunchang raised an eyebrow. He leaned forward, and rested the elbow of his other arm against Mengde’s shoulder, tilting his head to the side as he closed the inches between their faces.

“That, Cao Mengde,” he said, slow, “I will have to see.”

“You will.” Not a new promise; merely one finally voiced with words half-formed by the blood on his tongue; the blood of those Yunchang had killed for the sake of reaching him, his new sanctuary. His smile widened, teeth glinting. 

“Oh, my jade,” he breathed. “You _will_.”

* * *

Excerpt taken from _Legends of the Forgotten: An Examination of Representations of Legendary Omegas_ , by Li Jing, pp. 87-89, published in 1988 for the University of Oxford Press:

 **Chapter 4: Guan Yunchang  
** _Introduction_  
  
In Chen Shuo’s _Sanguozhi_ , the authoritative work recording the events of the Three Kingdoms era (220-280), he writes, “Guan Yunchang’s capture by Cao Cao’s forces can be considered the turning point in the war.”

    There are two things of significance of in that sentence. Firstly: that Chen saw it fit to use Guan Yu’s courtesy name, even though at the time of his capture he was still known primarily as Guan Yu. Chen’s choice of name for Guan Yu set a precedent for historians and authors to disregard his status as a warrior who otherwise would have been addressed in text solely by his full family-given name. Secondly, Chen positions Guan Yu’s capture as the pivotal event that turned the tides of war, in contrast to the Beijing operas – _Cloud’s Flight, Crossing of Four Passes, Cedar Over Peach,_ just to name a few – which set the main turning point to be Guan Yu’s choice to turn from Liu Bei to side instead with Cao Cao. Hence, the story of Guan Yu stands as a representation of tension between the world of the arts and that of public policy; tension that is utterly unique to his particular tale, for the former usually sets into stone the latter, especially in the eras preceding the twentieth century. 

    Upon closer examination, the contrast grows even starker. _Cloud’s Flight_ and _Crossing of Four Passes_ , two of the most famous operas based upon the Three Kingdoms era, centred on Guan Yu’s month-long flight from Liu Bei’s temporary camp in Jing Province to Cao Cao’s Xu. _Cedar Over Peach_ is merely the most popular and oft-repeated tales written of Guan Yu’s breaking of brotherhood with Liu Bei and Liu Bei’s subsequent capture and sentencing in Cao Cao and Guan Yu’s court. (1) Even _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_ begun with Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei’s vow of brotherhood beneath the famed peach tree. Meanwhile, Chen devoted a few lines to the battles Guan Yu fought for Liu Bei and a thin chapter to the change of his loyalties. The majority of Guan Yu’s appearance in _Sanguozhi_ were as Empress of Cao Wei, already forsworn to Cao Cao, and his bonds with Liu Bei broken.

    Chen’s treatment of Guan Yu, a legendary figure already worshipped in his lifetime by both warriors and mothers, would be puzzling if one takes his account in isolation. However, one must understand the context: Chen wrote _Sanguozhi_ while serving as a courtier in Sima Yi’s court of the then-newborn Jin dynasty. Sima Yi usurped the throne of Cao Wei after the death of his ex-student Cao Rui – daughter of Cao Jie, and thus granddaughter of Cao Cao and Guan Yu – and it was his dynasty to which we can trace backwards from our Ming dynasty. When taking into consideration that Sima Yan and his heirs reinstalled the old precepts that Cao Cao and Guan Yu managed to loosen to confirm his right to the mandate of heaven, it is unsurprising that Guan Yu’s stories have been reshaped in official records to one of mere honour and duty – returning to Liu Bei as part of his duty to him as brother, and returning to Cao Cao as part of honouring him as husband – without emphasising on his martial skills and abilities. Guan Yu’s fading into obscurity until his revival in the Tang dynasty become much more understandable when keeping that context in place as well.

    However, it is clear that disparity in accounts represent more than political interests. Like the legends of the omega woman warrior Hua Mu Lan examined in the previous chapter(2), the conflicting perspectives of Guan Yu stand on the fault lines that underscores the tenuous position that omegas hold in society: purportedly slaves, yet with exceptions worthy of legends and even worship. As such, they bear deeper examination.

(1) Chen’s offhand line that Cao Cao refused to allow any records of that final meeting to exist only set fire to the imaginations of writers further.  
(2) To recap, the operas and oral traditions centred around her defeat of the Xiongnu, while the written records and narratives emphasised her filial piety to her parents.


	5. Epilogue: 夫妇从, “harmony in a wife's submission”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire chapter is dedicated to [Niney](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Niney), who stayed up to 4am with me once to talk about all of this. Guan Yu’s state here is entirely the fault of [chuchisushi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chuchisushi). In other words: heavy depiction of mpreg throughout, with pregnant sex in the last scene. /throws hands up into the air.

_Ten years later_

“The Empress arrives!” The call pierced through the thick, heavy silence of the court. “The Crown Princess arrives!”

Liu Bei, once royal uncle, once warlord, craned his neck backwards as much as he could. Around him, court officials and generals alike turned, and, as one, lowered their heads. The large, spacious room rang out with the sounds of flesh meeting flesh as they smacked their fists against their palms in salute.

There, standing by the tall and wide double doors of the court, was a man familiar and yet so strange. He was dressed in black – made of the same shimmering silk as the usurper Cao Cao – with threads of green embroidered into vines and leaves coiling at the hems. Silver dotted various parts of his robes: at the collar, a spider with a half-spun web which corners touching the vines; at the hem sweeping the polished wooden floor, a fox with its paws reaching out to one leaf; down one calf, a snake hanging from one vine with its fangs bared.

“Er-ge,” Yide breathed softly beside him. Liu Bei’s eyes were too wide and his throat too dry to rebuke him for the title that had been inappropriate for ten years. For beside Guan Yu was a girl. No older than nine years of age, she had eyes that would be familiar if they were not narrowed, and the shade of her skin Liu Bei would know if she was not dressed in black with a rearing hawk stitched in silver thread at her shoulder. 

The usurper had stood from his false throne. His footsteps resounded on the expensive wood of the court of Xu. Liu Bei watched as Cao Cao headed towards Guan Yu, and he sucked in a deep breath through his teeth when the usurper, the man who styled himself _Emperor_ , bowed from the waist with one hand extended.

Guan Yu raised one hand, and placed it into Cao Cao’s palm. His other hand stayed where it was: resting onto of the swell of his belly, so large that it seemed that he was trying to smuggle one of those cloth balls that soldiers would kick around in play beneath his robes.

“Empress,” Cao Cao said. His voice was low, but it echoed so loud in the room. “Welcome.”

“My lord,” Guan Yu greeted, chin dipping towards his chest. “May I take part in the judgment of these men?”

“You honour me with your request,” Cao Cao returned. He straightened with Guan Yu’s hand still in his own, but didn’t speak further, instead giving the omega a glance that, oddly enough, made rage run hot through Liu Bei’s veins. He had known long ago that Cao Cao had stolen Guan Yu from him, but to see it…

“Xiaojie,” Cao Cao spoke suddenly.

The girl bowed. “Yes, honoured father,” she said, and headed forward. Liu Bei stared at her as she walked past him, but she spared him – spared no one – a single glance as she made straight for the throne that stood for Cao Cao.

Liu Bei had been avoiding looking at it, but now he could not. Standing right there, on the raised platform, was a throne as ornate as the usurper’s own: both made of carved wood with silver twined around it and heavily padded. The only difference was that the throne to Liu Bei’s right – _Guan Yu’s_ throne, he understood now with a sinking horror – had strapped to its back a blade.

A _glaive_. A very familiar glaive, made in the exact likeness to the one Liu Bei had seen held in Guan Yu’s hand. Except: it was made of silver, too, the metal almost molten in the morning sunlight streaming through the window, a snake engraved and painted green along the flat of it. The glaive’s staff, too, was different: made of cedar, not peach. 

The girl pulled loose the silk ropes that held the decorative blade free. Holding it in her small hands, she went to her knees as her parents climbed up the platform, Guan Yu’s hand still in Cao Cao’s.

 _Bamboo_ , Liu Bei realised. The vines and leaves on his robes trailed backwards to bamboo on his back; a whole grove of it, embroidered in green thread. Another sight that took his breath away: Guan Yu’s hair, tied up in a tail at the top of his head like most warriors, but so long that the strands swept over the curves of his hips with every step. 

As Liu Bei watched, wide-eyed and head spinning, Cao Cao kissed the back of Guan Yu’s hand – in front of his officials, his generals, his _prisoners_ – and stepped backwards. As Liu Bei’s breath strangled itself in his throat, Guan Yu picked up the weapon from his daughter’s hands, and swung it around at the same moment as he sat down on the throne.

The _thump_ of wood meeting hollow wood rang out loud. Beside him, Cao Cao took his own seat, and the girl rose to her feet.

“Rise.” The voice was not Cao Cao’s, but Guan Yu’s. 

Officials and generals straightened from their bows, their hands falling to their sides. None of them had batted an eye at the… the _display_ that had just occurred.

“Xiaojie.” Cao Cao’s voice again. He raised his hand, beckoning to his daughter, his only heir. “Come here.”

“Honoured father,” the girl murmured. She headed over to him without lifting her head, her hands straight and flat by her sides.

“Look at those two men,” Cao Cao said. “Do you know who they are?”

“The traitors Liu Bei and Zhang Fei,” the child said dutifully.

Cao Cao threw his head back and laughed. He reached out and ruffled her hair – the hair that was styled like a warrior’s too, in a tail that begun at the top of her head – and shook his head. “They are also the men you would’ve been obliged to call your uncles, Xiaojie, if Liu Bei had not been blind and selfish.”

Beside him, Yide surged forward, teeth bared. But before he could speak, Guan Yu said, “Mengde.”

“Are they the men who had caused you hurt, honoured mother?” the girl demanded, indignation writ all over her small face. “Are they?”

“The choices I made,” Guan Yu said, voice soft and eyes hooded, “are my own.”

Whipping her head around, the girl narrowed her eyes. Then she took a deep breath and straightened, her head tipping upwards. Her carriage should be ridiculous, but there was something in the straight lines of her shoulders that stifled all possible laughter in Liu Bei’s throat. Perhaps it was because of those eyes: dark and in such a familiar shape, but her gaze bored into Liu Bei’s with the same arrogance as Cao Cao’s.

She took one step forward, until she was in front of the thrones, sketched a salute so suddenly that the slap of her fist into her palm echoed in Liu Bei’s ears.

“I am Cao Jie, Crown Princess of the Middle Kingdom,” she announced. “Daughter of Cao Cao, the Emperor of wiles and wisdom, and Guan Yunchang, Empress of wild compassion.” She lifted her head, and her smile was sharp and full of teeth. “I pay my respects to Liu Bei, uncle to an Emperor who abdicated under admission of his own worthlessness; leader buoyed by lies and tenuous ties.” 

Her eyes turned right, to Yide. “I pay my respect to Zhang Fei,” she continued. “Respected warrior, loyal soldier, but born unfortunate with a wit too blunt to see which is the better brother to follow.”

Behind her, Guan Yu tipped his head back. He closed his eyes. “Once more,” he said, voice quiet but resonant still, “she proves herself your daughter, Mengde.” 

Cao Cao, posture indolent with one elbow on the arm of his throne, laughed. “Ah, but her strength is far too great for her to be mine alone, Yunchang.”

“Xiaojie would prefer it if her parents would not speak of her as if she is deaf,” the girl said, her tone dry. She paused. “If they are amenable to such a request.” 

Snickers. There was _snickering_ amongst the generals and officials, none of whom were actually bothering to hide their mirth at the behaviour of the man who supposedly held the mandate of heaven; the highest office throughout all lands. 

Perhaps Liu Bei’s gaping mouth was too overt a sign, for Cao Cao turned back towards him. “Once,” he said, voice a slurring drawl, “when my Empress was but a warrior and I yet without the mandate of heaven, he told me that my court lacked passion.”

He slanted his eyes towards Guan Yu again. “Do you still feel the same?”

“Only that now your court’s fault is that you hold too much pride in its lack of decorum,” Guan Yu said. He brushed a hand over his face, seemingly tucking away a non-existent loose strand of hair. “So much that it takes a long time for things to get done.”

“That,” Cao Cao said, tapping his finger on the arm of the throne for emphasis, “is only when you are here, my Empress, and our daughter, too, for my passion for the both of you overflows like the Yellow River in thunderstorms.”

“Should I leave, then?” Guan Yu raised an eyebrow.

“Please don’t.” The voice was not Cao Cao, but one of the gathered generals. Liu Bei could recognize him – Zhang Liao; Cao Cao’s rumoured second-in-command and Chancellor. Given his robes and hat, it seemed those whispers had some merit. “Time in court flies by with your presence.” He pressed a hand to his heart, and bowed. “Your Majesty.”

Murmurs throughout court, and nods. Some made to speak, perhaps to cheer, but Guan Yu raised a hand – the one he had held over his swollen belly all this time – and they fell silent. Liu Bei felt his breath strangling once more in his throat. A single omega, holding so much authority over Alphas? Even as Empress, that was…

“Nevertheless, we must continue,” Guan Yu said, his voice cutting through his thoughts like a knife through skin. “I would rather get this _particular_ session over with.”

He closed his eyes, and sank back deeper into the cushions of the throne. Beside him, Cao Cao sat up suddenly. The girl – Cao Jie – was also immediately by his side, her hands wrapped around the staff of the glaive, nudging until he released it with a quiet sigh. Holding it with both hands once more, she descended from the raised platform, and stood with the generals and officials, just a step ahead of Zhang Liao.

Cao Cao reached across the space between them, and their hands tangled together. Slow, the movement of their fingers like a spider spinning its threads around its captured prey.

“For the sake of peace,” Guan Yu said. “What must be done must be done.” 

There were times when Liu Bei had imagined what it would be like to meet Guan Yu again. There had been many scenarios he had envisioned, but none of them had come true. Perhaps it was appropriate: never in a thousand years would Liu Bei imagine that it would be his brother who would announce his execution. But Guan Yu was no longer his brother, and had not been for a long time.

He was Cao Cao’s Empress now.

“For treason, there is no other punishment than death,” Cao Cao said, his voice gentle and his eyes turned towards Guan Yu. “Death by the five horses, in fact.”

Never in a thousand years would Liu Bei imagine his own death being discussed in his presence as if he was invisible. 

Guan Yu opened his eyes. He smiled, and there were lines writ deep beside his eyes and mouth. “Will you not be kind?” 

“Kindness in exchange for treachery,” Cao Cao said, “breeds only rebellion.” He lifted Guan Yu’s hand and stood. He, usurper, Emperor, walked over to Guan Yu’s throne, and knelt in front of him. “Did you not accuse me once that my court has no hatred?”

“Such hatred,” Guan Yu started. He shook his head. “I have chosen for my own name compassion, and you have named me ferocious for the honour in my heart. Yet now…” His breath seemed to rattle in his lungs. “I can find no arguments against your words.”

His eyes slanted towards Liu Bei, meeting his gaze for the first time since his arrival into court. “You will not beg for mercy either,” he said. His gaze slid to Yide. “Neither of you will.”

“Both of us know the consequences of loss,” Yide answered, back straight and shoulders straining against the shackles pinning his arms back. “We are willing to bear it.”

“There is only,” Liu Bei started. He hissed a breath through his teeth, all too aware of Cao Cao’s eyes, sharp like a snake awaiting weakness. “Only that I beg for you to give a merciful death to my soldiers, and my wives and children. For they are loyal, and do not deserve cruelty for choosing to follow the wrong man.”

“Mengde,” Guan Yu said. They exchanged another glance. Then Cao Cao sighed. He stood up, raising Guan Yu’s hand to his mouth for a brief kiss – in front of his entire court, in front of his prisoners; an Emperor showing affection for his Empress without care for the decorum that courtroom deserved – before he returned to his throne.

“Death by the five horses for Liu Bei and Zhang Fei,” he pronounced, turning his head to the scribe in the corner, who had already dipped his ink into the brush. “The rest will be judged by their own crimes and demerits. Separately.”

Once, Liu Bei would think that to be a lie; false hope like rotted meat thrown at starving dogs. But now he looked at Guan Yu’s bowed head, his closed eyes; he took in Cao Cao’s gaze, his head tilted still towards his Empress. He remembered that it was said: to offer omegas to Cao Cao was an exercise in futility, for he had vowed to take no wife or concubine other than his Empress. To his soldiers, those rumours had been a joke: that an Emperor would staunchly stick to monogamy like a poor, common man.

Now, looking at how their hands were once again linked, he suspected the reason to be something else entirely. 

“Xu Chu,” Cao Cao said finally, and a thickset man in a general’s armour stood up straighter. “Have a few soldiers escort our prisoners to their cells.”

Standing, he walked once more to Guan Yu’s side, standing in front of him with the back to the court, his wide body blocking his Empress from all eyes.

“I shall escort the Empress back to his quarters,” he continued. “Court is adjourned for the day.”

At Xu Chu’s gesture, the guards came forward. Liu Bei did not resist as they dragged him to his feet. His eyes were fixed forward, and he had never hated Cao Cao as he had in that one moment, for he could not see Guan Yu. “Er-di,” Liu Bei raised his voice as loud as he could over the clamour of bowing officials and generals. “I have let you down.”

Cao Cao whirled around, but Yide was already straining against his bonds. “Er-ge,” Yide was saying. “Er-ge, will you not—” 

“Escort,” Cao Cao was not shouting, but his voice rang out sharp and harsh nonetheless, “the prisoners back to their cells.”

Catching Yide’s eyes, Liu Bei shook his head. Yide, obedient as ever to his elder brother, slumped. This was the last glimpse Liu Bei had of the man who used to be his younger brother: his long hair obscuring his face, an Emperor on his knees at his feet, and a Crown Princess holding on tightly to his hand. Hidden and protected, yet so shrouded in grief that it hovered around him.

Surely it should bring him joy to know he had caused misery to the one who had killed so many of his men. Surely it should hurt his pride to know that Cao Cao was right. 

But Guan Yu was still his brother despite his own severing. But he saw now, clear-sighted with death looming, that he had lost his brother not because of Cao Cao’s machinations, like he had long thought, but due to own selfishness and blindness. There was no joy, no pride, in his heart. There was only sorrow, for he had taken far too long to see. 

Still, there was hope: Cao Cao’s arrogance surely would have that image of his Empress circulating – seated in a throne, heavy with child, and wielding the weapon that heralded the greatest warrior under the wide skies. Cao Cao’s rage, banked but still clasped by the air like the smoke of incense, would ensure that none but those here would ever know of his Empress’s vulnerability.

Perhaps this was all Liu Bei had left: the faint hope that he would be abandoned like all traitors; body torn apart by horses, and his spirit left wandering without an ancestral tablet to guide him, and forever hungry. 

A fitting punishment for elder brothers who had cast their younger to the side unjustly. 

***

The guards always announced his presence far too loudly. Yunchang nodded to them in acknowledgment, raising a hand to silence one man’s protest. When that man seemed to still hesitate, he waved him away with a stronger gesture, and took note of his face: a man willing to question the Empress either had enough courage to go far or too much disrespect, and both warranted greater attention paid.

Not now: he did not watch them as they left, instead turning.

They had installed Qilan in one of the smaller rooms in the quarters once reserved for the wives and concubines who had fallen out of the Emperor’s favour. Now they stood more as cells for family of captured warlords; those who did not deserve the cruel chill of the dungeons. Ladies Mi and Sun had been granted their own suite of rooms nearby, he knew, along with their children.

Qilan had been sitting at the table, eyes listlessly focused on its wooden top. Now she stood and bowed her head, knees bending and hands tucking together on top of her right hip. 

“This slave pays her respects to the Empress.”

Taking a step forward, Yunchang gently nudged at her jaw, lifting her head. “Sao-zi,” he said, and smiled wryly at her look of shock. “If you continue to stand, then this nobody will be obliged to do the same, and...” He gestured to his made-unwieldy body.

Her lips parted. After a moment, she let out a huff of a breath, and dropped back down to one of the cushioned chairs. As Yunchang settled into the one opposite her, she glanced at him.

“Will the Empress still allow this lowly slave to pour the tea for her er-ge?”

“Only if she stops referring herself as a slave,” Yunchang returned. He softened his smile as she looked at him again, and shook his head. “The term ill-suits this nobody’s sao-zi.”

Once more casting her eyes to the table, Qilan nodded. She picked up the teapot, her hands graceful as one pressed down on the lid and the other raised the handle. The tea that poured into the cups smelled as fresh and green as the tea in his own rooms. Yunchang barely managed to stifle the roll of his eyes: even here, even in this, Mengde had decided to interfere. If he wasn't already used to the man's meddling in his affairs, if he wasn't absolutely sure that Mengde only did it out of some strange, warped wish to continuously dote on him, Yunchang would do more than mentally grouse in the man’s direction.

“Er-ge,” Qilan said suddenly, breaking the silence. When Yunchang looked at her from above the rim of the cup, she had her hands in her lap, staring intently at him. “May I ask an intrusive question?”

He smiled. “Of course, sao-zi.”

“How...” she waved towards his body, “How long?”

“Another two months,” Yunchang said. He couldn't help but laugh when her eyes went wide, and he set the cup down so he could place a gentle hand over the heavy curve of his stomach. Even while sitting, he could feel the overstretched pull of the skin, the twinging ache of his hips, and even the bruises that were surely on his ribs, underneath the skin. 

It was better now than it had been with Xiaojie, nearly ten years ago now. Even though the Lord Chancellor – then only a General – had managed to find a physician skilled enough to draw the poison out of his bones, they were still nearly too raw and brittle to carry his daughter’s weight. It had taken eight years before water stopped driving needles into his skin whenever it rained. 

Tugging himself out of his thoughts, Yunchang focused once more on his sao-zi. 

“Perhaps it is one child the size of the Emperor's ego,” he grinned out of the corner of his mouth when she pressed her hand to her own, obviously stifling her laughter, “but I suspect it is two.”

“Two,” Qilan said. Her hands finally rose from her lap, dropping onto the table as she leaned forward. “I'm almost beset by envy, er-ge.”

Yunchang watched her from beneath his lids for a long moment. He knew from the reports of the soldiers that Qilan had been alone when they captured her, but that might not mean…

“Where are your children, sao-zi?” he asked.

Shoulders tremulous, she shook her head. “I do not have any.” 

He suspected that, but the word shoved itself out of his throat anyway: “ _What_?”

“There have been heats, of course,” Qilan said, and she had returned to avoiding his gaze. “All induced by drugs - some by my own choice, some by Lord Liu's orders.” She started to toy with the handle of a cup with one hand. “But despite the attempts, nothing took. Not even once.”

A breath escaped her in a sudden rush, and she ducked her head down further. “Perhaps it was luck in disguise,” she said, voice growing softer. “The Emperor has sentenced the wives and children of Lord Liu to die by beheading. My heart will not be able to withstand knowing that my children would be executed.”

Yunchang winced. Mengde's decision, he knew, was the only one that the circumstances allowed, and he was already being merciful: the execution of wives through beheading was expected, but the children… Though all of them were barely more than infants – the eldest, Liu Shan, was but two years old – their youth could not spare them. They carried Lord Liu’s name: for a proper message to be sent to traitors throughout the empire, even a child so young should be sentenced to die by being pulled apart by horses. (Or, he mentally corrected himself, _announced_ to die by horses, but instead beheaded at the last moment. For Mengde’s fingers might still fitted ill around the shapes of clemency, but he was still a fool enough to indulge Yunchang in whatever he wished.)

Such was the cost of war, so heavy that even honour could barely find the place to breathe. Reaching over the table, he took Qilan's hand. It felt cold and limp in his grasp.

“Sao-zi,” he said softly.

“Throughout these ten years, I’ve thought and thought,” Qilan continued, quiet. “Perhaps it is that I truly could not conceive, but, somehow…” for the briefest of moments, her eyes met his through the veil of her hair. “Er-ge, I never once imagined Lord Liu could have won this war. I always… I always thought it was a matter of time until Lord Cao did.”

Those words knocked the breath out of him. Yunchang's eyes went wide. “Wha-” he started.

“Perhaps that is why Confucius stated that omegas should not be allowed to know much of the matters of war and world,” she continued. The tremors wreaking her shoulders trembled, and she shook her head. “To know, er-ge, is to be aware of the lack of safety.”

“That is a dangerous line of thought,” Yunchang said, voice soft. He half-stood from his seat, shifting the chair with one hand and a foot closer to her before he took her hands in both of his own. “To blame yourself for your capability.”

Qilan’s smile turned wry. “There are few like the Emperor, er-ge,” she said, her voice soft with the barest hint of wistfulness in them. “So few that Liu da-ge had frequently galvanised his warriors with the lie that the Emperor forced you, his Empress, into the role of General to march into battle.” Her eyes flickered to meet his. “I know of soldiers who fought for Liu da-ge in hope that they would, somehow, be able to rescue you from suffering that you are not suited for.”

Yunchang closed his eyes. There was no surprise within him, only a coiling sense of disappointment that threatened to choke. “Are many of those the same warriors whom I had led and fought with?”

“Only some,” Qilan said, voice soft. “The others had died long before they could do the same.”

A fist was wrapping around his heart, squeezing tight. The children he carried beneath it kicked at him, clearly sensing his distress, but their presence brought no respite, only the heaviness of guilt for they, too, were symbols of the choice he had made ten years ago. Mengde had told him, over and over, that it was not truly a choice: he could not have brought himself to kill their little Xiaojie for the suffocating privilege of staying by Liu Bei’s side. Though Yunchang knew that was true, he knew, too, that he should not have cut all of his ties. He should have been clever enough to think in another way.

Now so many soldiers were dead; soldiers once under his charge and whose lives were still tied, like frayed threads, around his fingers. His heart ached.

Qilan’s hands closed around his again, squeezing gently. “I did not mean to bring you grief,” she told him. “I am sorry, er-ge.”

Opening his eyes, Yunchang shook his head. “The fault is not yours.” He tried to reassure with a smile, but he did not know the shape his lips made. “Only that I grieve for you, that you have found no peace for these ten years.”

“That is little to mourn,” she returned. “I have brought my misfortunes upon myself.”

Yunchang’s breath stopped in his throat. He had to let it out when one of the children slammed its foot against his ribs, and he stroked his thumb over the curve of his belly. A distraction to give him time to choke out: “Surely not.” 

“I have been unfaithful to my lord, for I did not believe in his abilities,” Qilan told her hands. “In my unfaithfulness, I have failed too in my duties, and given him no children.”

Falling silent for a moment, her breath escaped in a sudden huff. “There is another sign of my unfaithfulness,” she continued. “My grief grew thickest not in my failures, er-ge,” she lifted her eyes to look at him, and shrugged, “but in that I, having borne him no children, had never been raised from a concubine to a wife.”

“Not in these ten years?” Yunchang asked, eyes widening.

She shook her head. 

Once, Qilan had told him: _There is naught left for me than to become the slave of Lady Mi and Lady Gan, forever crawling for scraps at their feet._ Yunchang had not wanted to believe in those words, then, but now, looking into the grief-dark depths of Qilan’s eyes, he could only realise his then-blindness and inability.

“You should have left with me,” he said, voice quiet. “I should have brought you with me when I first left.”

“No,” Qilan said, and the sudden swiftness of her response had him rearing back slightly, blinking in surprise. “Definitely not, er-ge.”

“Do you doubt my abilities to keep you safe?” Yunchang asked, the words forming without need of his mind’s consent.

Shaking her head, she rested her arms on the table and leaned forward, her eyes finally meeting – and boring into – his. “You were already carrying one who was helpless then,” she stated. “You do not need another to weigh you down.”

Yunchang opened his mouth, but she squeezed his hand, hard, and he clicked his teeth back shut again.

“Besides, what would the Emperor have thought if you came to him with me by your side?” Qilan tilted her head, and her smile turned lopsided. “He had already once tried to use me as ropes that would tie you to his side, er-ge. What say you that he would not try to do the same again?”

 _He wouldn’t,_ Yunchang wanted to say, but the words on his tongue was too light, nearly amorphous: he knew exactly what Mengde was capable of. If he had any doubts that Yunchang would leave him during those few months before their Xiaojie was born, he would have done anything to prevent it from happening. And Mengde’s methods were, by their very nature, underhanded; it had taken Yunchang years before his touch could temper them into something more honourable. Years in which he had watched Mengde be convinced that the roots wrapped around Yunchang’s feet were not illusions crafted by his own desperate wishing. 

“I see,” he said finally. He did: it was not merely his inability then that had caused the grief in her eyes, but now, too. “I… Sao-zi, I have let you down.”

“You have not,” Qilan refuted immediately. When Yunchang blinked, she took his hands into hers again, squeezing lightly. “Do you know why I never thought that Liu da-ge would win this war? That I had waited, all of this while, for the Emperor to overcome him?”

The changes in topics were making his head spin. Yunchang would think the old beliefs were true – that omegas could not think while they were with child – if he did not remember ten years ago, when Qilan had confused him the same way, and set stars dazzling in his vision from all that she saw and could make him see.

“Why?” he asked, quiet.

“Because you were with him,” Qilan said. She made another one of those low, huffing laughs, shaking her head until a few strands of her hair freed themselves from her bun, wisping across her eyes. “Even if the world forgets my existence, er-ge, I know you would not.”

“Surely you have far too much faith in me,” Yunchang said.

“Only just enough,” Qilan countered. After a moment, she bowed her head. “Perhaps it is arrogance, er-ge, but I believe that you are here for more than a deathbed visit.”

Despite himself, Yunchang laughed. For Qilan sat there in such health that her words could be nothing but ridiculousness, and the small smile playing on her lips showed that she knew that precisely.

It was disloyal to think lowly of one’s brother, no matter how estranged or disowned, yet he could not help but wonder: How could Lord Liu think of Qilan capable for nothing but concubinage when her mind was so sharp despite all of the deprivations in her education?

“No, I did not,” Yunchang said. He stroked his thumb across her knuckles until she turned to look at him, and then said: “I’d like you to take a position as my handmaiden, if you are willing.”

“A handmaiden,” Qilan said, blinking. “Pardon me, er-ge, but I am clearly a maiden no longer.”

“There are thirteen omegas who hold that position,” Yunchang said, pretending for a moment that he did not hear her. “Five men, and eight women. Out of them, three are wed to soldiers, two to minor officials, and another three to the guards of the palace.” He folded his hands on top of the swell of his stomach. “Out of the remaining five, three were divorced. Only two are truly maidens, and one of them is betrothed and awaiting an auspicious day.”

Qilan blinked.

“None of their duties require a maidenhead,” Yunchang said, lips twitching at the corners. “Neither do they pertain to serving me directly.” He did not need people to serve him hand on foot: even as unwieldy as he had become, he could still care for himself perfectly well. “Instead, they serve as an extension of my eyes and ears both inside the palace and out of it.”

“You mean…” Qilan cocked her head to the side. “Lord Zhuge Liang had picked up on rumours, of course, that the Emperor’s spymaster was his own Empress.”

“To call me a spymaster would be to overstate my position,” Yunchang said. He picked up his cup of tea, sipping at it as he grinned. “I do not intercept messages, and neither do I have spies throughout the lands. I merely ensure that the Emperor receive the information that should come to his attention.”

“Why?” 

Yunchang didn’t answer for a long moment, thinking. In the decade since he had made his choice, there had been many changes, and that single question demanded of him the justification for every single one.

“The empire is large and sprawling, and the Emperor stands above it all,” he said finally, words slow, but not hesitant. “In his eyes, all those beneath him are small like ants.” He swept out a hand. “But it was the ants themselves who had built the empire, who fed it and clothed it.”

“Did they,” Qilan murmured, eyes half-lidded.

“Fed and clothed and ensured its continuity,” Yunchang corrected himself, resting his hand back on his swollen belly. “All are vital, and yet their pain and suffering are invisible to the Emperor’s eyes.”

Sipping at his tea again, he set porcelain back down into wood, and caught Qilan’s gaze with his own. “For changes to solidify, for them to sink roots deep enough to loosen the soil of the old precepts, we needed eyes of ants who could crawl high enough to reach the cloud upon which the Emperor sits.”

Qilan didn’t answer him for a moment. “Surely shoulders like mine are too thin for duty-forged wings that are so wide,” she said, her voice quiet. “Is there not a price to pay to reach such heights?”

Yunchang remembered, suddenly, the last glimpse he had of her ten years ago: seated next to Lord Liu, with invisible chains that shackled her not to his feet but sinking deep into the ground.

“There is,” he said carefully. “My handmaidens are wed, and many have children of their own.” He paused. “But all of them given up the lives they had before, cutting their prior ties and taking on new names.”

They would have their ancestral tablets, of course, but new families could never replace the old. Furthermore, none would be well-known enough to be recorded in future histories of their era. It was necessary: he started the position to spare the lives of the lower concubines of the previous Emperor; the ones who had no hand in the attempt of the then-Empress and higher-ranked concubines to kill him and Xiaojie.

That was the first time he had interfered with Mengde’s decrees. In that time, his interferences and number of handmaidens had only grown.

Qilan stared at him for a long moment before she burst into laughter, loud and ringing and true. “My apologies,” she said, words half-muffled with her head ducked downwards and hand pressed over her mouth. “But, er-ge, that is more of a boon than a terror to me.”

“Sao-zi,” Yunchang said, voice gentle. “Would you force this nobody to suffer through the grief of your death?”

“I have known that it would happen for so long that I no longer fear it,” Qilan said. She fiddled with the handle of her cup for a moment before she lifted it up and drained the rest of the tea like it was _baijiu_ instead. “Yet here you come once more, er-ge, to rescue me.”

“To offer you a position,” Yunchang corrected. “If I am to save you, I would have allowed you to go where you please.”

“Where would I go, then?” Qilan asked him, lips quirked into a smile. She shook her head. “With Liu da-ge dead, there is no place for me, and now you offer one so blithely.” Then, before Yunchang could protest, she continued, “Is this offer extended to the Ladies Mi and Sun as well? And their children? And Liu Shan?”

Yunchang lowered his eyes. “I wish I could,” he said. 

Lord Liu had waged war against Mengde and Wei for so long based upon his bloodline; the same blood that his children would share. If Mengde spared them, he would only be leaving potential war for Xiaojie to deal with later in her life. If he spared the women…

“Sun Quan has been biding his time,” Yunchang said. He traced the rim of his cup with a finger. “If we keep them alive, then he will take their rescue to as reason to invade Wei.”

Qilan nodded. “I know Sun Shangxiang well,” she said, voice soft. “Daughter and sister to warlords, only not one herself by mistake of birth… She would not be able to bear living after her lord husband’s defeat.” She folded her hands in front of her. “And Lady Mi’s brothers have not been captured, have they?”

“No,” Yunchang said.

Truth to be told, Sun Quan, Mi Zhu, and Mi Fang might end up attacking Wei even with Lady Sun and Lady Mi’s deaths. But with them executed as wives of Liu Bei, their reasons would ring hollower, and fewer would join them in their cause. Precious little comfort to the women. They, betas, were said to be higher in status than omegas, but all seemed to be naught but chess pieces to be moved around in times of war.

Yunchang had welded himself to the side of one of the players, and he knew his hands were entangled with Mengde’s when setting the pieces down. But it did not mean that he was not still buffeted by the same cruel winds.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes, exhausted beyond words. Ten years ago, he had thought the war would end. Yet now, ten years on, it did not seem to be abating in any measure, even with one side defeated.

“Er-ge.”

Qilan’s voice broke him out of his reverie. Yunchang lifted his head to meet her eyes.

She had stood, and now she took the few steps towards him. Her hair brushed against his jaw – light, cautious – before he let out a sigh, releasing the tension in his shoulders to allow her touch. Her fingers slipped into the long tail he kept his hair in, sliding down the strands inch by slow inch.

“I’ll take your offer, er-ge,” she said. “Not for the sake of saving my life. Not for a sake of the empire.” She smiled, soft and sweet-edged. “But for the sake of helping to ease your burdens, however I can.”

Yunchang bowed his head. He took Qilan’s other hand into both of his own, folding the fingers down before he lifted the knuckles to his lips.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Sao-zi.”

*

“Mengde.”

“Shhh. I’m listening.”

“To what?”

“Our children’s report on what their honoured mother, the Empress of Ferocious Compassion, has been doing the whole day.” Mengde’s eyes turned up to him, bright with teasing mischief, and his smile was wide. “Whether he has been straining himself.”

Despite himself, Yunchang laughed. “The heights of your intelligence scale above the clouds, my husband,” he said, dry, “but not even your children could learn to speak before their birth.”

“It simply takes a discerning ear,” Mengde countered, but when Yunchang pressed his lips into a line, he stood from where he had been kneeling at the edge of their bed.

His chuckles ghosted over Yunchang’s hair as Mengde leaned over him, one hand sliding through his bound hair to release the tie even as the other rested on the swell of their children. Yunchang lidded his eyes as the strands of his hair fell loose down his back from the tail, his own hand tangling with Mengde’s on top of the curve.

“You indulge yourself more with them than you ever did with Xiaojie,” he noted, words slurring together as Mengde carded his fingers through his hair, fingertips digging into the back of his neck to release the tension there that had gathered during the day.

“They are the fruits of the nine years we have both worked for you to feel safe again,” Mengde said, voice equally quiet. “Can you blame me for revelling?”

Yunchang opened his eyes. Mengde was looking at him as he always did – with eyes soft at the edges, and gleaming dark with affection and what Yunchang now knew to be love. He lifted a hand.

Mengde dipped his head. Their mouths brushed together, gentle, as Yunchang’s fingers tugged on the cord that held Mengde’s hair back – so it could fit into the bun that held the Emperor’s hat steady – until those thick, coarse strands fell down, a heavy curtain around their faces.

“Empress mine,” Mengde murmured against his lips. Right before Yunchang could ask – or even make a questioning noise – a hand slipped from his belly down to his thigh, trailing half-tickling over his sides. “May I?”

An image came to Yunchang suddenly: one of his handmaidens, Cui Shi, delivering her report with tea the morning after his heat has ended, murmuring hesitant and quiet under her breath, _Your Majesty, it is rare for an Alpha to ask_. The half-veiled sorrow of her eyes as she apologised for her imprudence. The twisting of her fingers when he prompted her to continue: _I envy your fortune_.

Pulling back to breathe, Yunchang’s fingers brushed light and gentle over Mengde’s cheeks. There were more lines above them now than there were ten years ago, and some grey at the temples, but the stiff straightness has been eased into upward creases.

“What of you, my lord?”

Here, rarer still: Mengde shaking his head, his eyes closed as he cupped Yunchang’s face with both hands, bowing over him until their foreheads touched. “Not tonight,” he whispered.

There were nights when Mengde was too tired; when the matters of the state weighed so much on him that he felt himself to be nothing but a wobbling bamboo frame, his insides ripped out by greedy hands that took and took and gave nothing in return. On those nights, he whispered to Yunchang once, he wanted nothing more than to touch him. Yunchang understood: he had taken enough of those self-same burdens from Mengde that his shoulders had bowed from it, and yet he still knew it was but a drop in the ocean of an Emperor’s duties. And though he knew that Mengde would not have taken the throne through a coup if not for his sake, it was not out of guilt that he tilted his head and kissed him again.

“Alright,” he said. 

This time, it was Mengde who retreated. His thumbs – still rough, especially at the insides of the knuckles – stroked over Yunchang’s cheeks, and then the corners of his eyes. He did not speak, but he did not have for Yunchang to see the gratitude in his eyes.

“Come,” Mengde said finally. He climbed onto the bed, moving to the very end until he could lean against the wall. Yunchang blinked at him for a moment before he laughed quietly to himself, pushing his too-heavy body backwards until he could lean against him. His chuckles turned into a soft sigh when Mengde’s arm wrapped around him, hand splaying over the children.

In the decade since he had cleaved his life to this man, he had realised that Mengde was far stronger than his body looked at first glance. Yet there was still a softness to him too: in the fat on his arms and shoulders that served better than a pillow for Yunchang’s head and neck, in the pudge of his abdomen and chest that soothed the aches of his back.

“You’re comfortable to lie on,” he said.

“Ah yes, my greatest duty,” Mengde said, amused. He tugged his hand through Yunchang’s hair, releasing the strands from where they were trapped between their bodies, and pressed a kiss to his temple. “To serve as a chair for the Empress of the realm.” 

Yunchang laughed again, though this time the sound tapered off to a pleased hum when Mengde started to braid his long hair. In the past, he had cut his hair whenever it grew past his ribs, but he had it allowed it to grow far longer – past his hips, now – for Mengde’s sake. At times, it was heavy. Especially now, when carrying the children had thickened the strands. But Mengde derived enough joy from toying with his hair that Yunchang supposed it was an easy enough sacrifice to make. Eventually, the braid was tied, lifted up, wound into a small bun with the ends tucked inside. “There,” Mengde said. “Now you won’t suffocate me while we sleep.”

“I can say the same for you,” Yunchang replied, arch, and tugged his fingers through the ends of Mengde’s own hair in the few seconds before the man swept it all out of the way.

Then fingers were running down his sides, almost ticklish, before they curved inwards. Both of them had undressed to their under-robes – nothing but cotton shifts – before heading to bed, and Yunchang made a soft, wordless sound as those fingers found the ties hidden inside his and loosened them.

“My jade,” Mengde breathed into his hair. Yunchang turned his head, and their lips met even as Mengde’s fingers moved downwards and wrapped, loose, around his cock. “How was your visit to Liu Bei’s little orchid today?”

“Her name is Qilan,” Yunchang said, his breath hitching as Mengde tapped his fingers over the length of his soft cock, urging his blood southwards to fill it. “She is my sao-zi. Have some respect.”

“Alright, alright,” his husband said, amused. He continued to toy with Yunchang’s cock, now drawing the tip of his thumb in circles over the head, as he said, “What will happen to the Empress’s sao-zi, then?”

“She has been offered a position as handmaiden,” Yunchang said. He dropped his head backwards, and let the breath gathering in his squashed lungs go.

“Did she accept?”

“Yesssss.” The word drew out into a long hiss, for Mengde had dipped his little finger between Yunchang’s folds, sliding in the gathering slick. “Do you insist that we talk about this _now_?”

“Of course,” Mengde said. He pressed a kiss to Yunchang’s cheek, incongruously innocent to the twist of his hand around his hardening cock. “When else would we have time for such a thing?”

“In the morning—” Yunchang gasped out, and his thighs flexed, raising his overburdened hips as a thin finger slipped inside him. “ _Mengde_!”

“But there will be more affairs to discuss in the morning,” Mengde said, and his voice was still so calm, damn him. Yunchang shuddered, squeezing his eyes shut as his husband’s other hand splayed over his chest, his fingers idly rubbing over his oversensitive nipples. “In any case—” The next words were lost: Yunchang cried out, wordless and sharp, as Mengde pinched one nipple even as he shoved two fingers inside. His thighs were slicked now, and the sounds Mengde’s hand made as he drew back slow and thrust in hard were wet and obscene.

He needed Mengde to be inside him. Needed to be taken and claimed by the cock he could feel burning against his back. But he knew that Mengde didn’t want it, knew that it wasn’t one of those nights when his husband could spare any bit of his own reactions and vulnerabilities, and so he clenched tight to Mengde’s arms instead, nails scraping over the cloth as Mengde fucked him harder with his fingers.

Then he was empty again. Yunchang gasped, a whine building in his throat, as Mengde’s teeth scraped over his neck, barely enough to ground him. He felt a thigh nudging against his own, and barely had the mind to swing his leg over it, leaning lopsided now against Mengde with his cock and hole exposed for him to play with.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Mengde asked.

“What?”

“How many strays do you plan to take in?” 

“They are not—” Yunchang said, and he jerked hard, words lost, when Mengde pushed three fingers inside him even as he squeezed the head of his cock. He could feel the rising tide inside him, the indecent wetness between his legs. His cock was dripping against the underside of the heavy swell of his belly.

“Not strays,” he finished, forcing the words through his closing throat. “All of them have done their part for the empire, and will contribute even more yet.”

“I don’t deny that,” Mengde said, still sounding so calm. He pressed a kiss to Yunchang’s hair, and nosed against the side of his neck. “But they were all strays before they arrived into your hands.” 

Then he drew out his fingers until only the tips were inside, and stroked circles over the rim of Yunchang’s hole, rubbing against the most sensitive parts of his body. Yunchang cried out again, body arching, and Mengde’s hand left his cock to splay upon his swollen belly, pressing his hips back down until his insides swallowed up the fingers again.

“Please,” Yunchang gasped, trying his best to not grind against the heavy erection he could feel against his back. The scent of smoke, mixed with that of sweat, filled his nose: familiar now but still enough to make his body ache with desire and longing. “Mengde, please.”

Mengde made a soft, considering sound in his throat. He pressed his mouth against the curve of Yunchang’s ear before nipping against it, making him shudder. “I know you’d like to, but…” he hummed again. “Would it not tire you out?”

It took Yunchang a moment to understand what his husband had asked. When he did, he opened his eyes, turning to stare. “I thought you said…”

“I know what I said,” Mengde smiled, amused. “But you should know by now that your pleasure always eases the weight, my jade.”

“Only if it doesn’t leave you raw-nerved in the morning,” Yunchang countered. It was easier to think, now, even though Mengde’s fingers were still teasing the rim of his hole; easier to focus on his husband than anyone else. “I would not have you straining yourself—” 

He stopped because there was a mouth on his, and Mengde was chuckling against his lips, the sound low and rumbling in the chest pressed against Yunchang’s arm. “Do not try to shape making love to you into a _chore_ , my jade,” Mengde said. “For it is not.” 

When Mengde had set his mind to something, Yunchang knew that there was still a chance he could change it. The only factor was, of course, whether he wished to. Now, looking into those bright-dark eyes, he realised that he didn’t. “Alright,” he said.

Sitting up away from that that broad chest, he let Mengde rearrange them as he liked. It took him years to understand that, for Mengde, doing so didn’t tire him out like it would Yunchang himself. Mengde thrived on this; on stroking his hands down his sides and thighs, nuzzling every spot he could reach, and lifting Yunchang up bodily to nudge him to turn around until they were facing each other with Mengde flat on his back, his under-robes sprawled open, on their bed.

Yunchang had still been trying his best to keep his strength, and so his thighs and arms could keep him lifted up as he looked at Mengde. At his husband; at the Emperor; at the man who became Emperor ahead of his own plans for his sake. He trailed his fingers through Mengde’s dishevelled hair, remembering those moments in the woods with Qilan, and he trembled for here was a joy he never thought himself capable of; never thought he could deserve.

“You’re thinking again,” Mengde said. His hand brushed Yunchang’s cheek, so light a touch that Yunchang could not help but turn his head to press a kiss against the palm. He took both of Mengde’s hands, and pressed them to his forehead before he lowered them to his mouth.

Even after a decade, Yunchang still could not find the right words. All those that were available were too trite, or overblown, or they were beautiful and thus belonged on Mengde’s mouth more than his own. He only hoped his eyes could write these words well in the air. 

Once, he gave up his pride and honour for this man, and Mengde had returned them back to him, new-shaped and brighter than ever. Once, duty was the cage through which he needed for the world’s light was far too glaring, but now he stood in the sunshine with a brace against his spine.

Taking a deep breath, he dropped his head back. “So I am,” he murmured, and steadied himself with one hand on the swell of his stomach before he sank down. The knot at the base of Mengde’s cock hadn’t expanded, but it didn’t need to: the familiar length and girth was enough to fill him entirely, driving a rasping moan out of his throat. He trembled as he lifted himself up, and sank down again.

“My jade,” Mengde whispered. His hands wrapped around Yunchang’s hips, and Yunchang gasped as he felt himself lifted upwards until only the head of Mengde’s cock remained inside him. “Stay there.”

Before Yunchang could understand his meaning through the pleasure-fog in his mind, Mengde’s grip tightened, and his hips drove upwards. 

Yunchang’s head dropped back, and he made a ragged sound, half-moan and half-shout. He wanted to protest, wanted to tell Mengde to _rest_ at least for a while, but Mengde was taking him steadily now, his cock slamming into Yunchang, the head catching at the rim of his hole with every other stroke and making him shake from the overwhelming pleasure of it. The sounds of their joining filled the room, wet slaps of skin on skin, and Yunchang cried out sharply, body juddering, and one of Mengde’s hand left his hip to press his thumb inside him, rubbing and rubbing.

“So beautiful,” Mengde said, and the sound of his voice had Yunchang forcing his eyes open by instinct. Heat shot through his spine, and he bit down hard on his own lip at the sight of Mengde’s eyes on him, the colour so dark that they had turned to flames to lick at his skin. 

“Mengde, Mengde,” he gasped out.

“Don’t hide your sounds from me,” Mengde said, and he slammed even harder inside, grinding his deflated knot against Yunchang’s folds. His thumb slipped out, and there was slick on his fingers as he caught one of Yunchang’s hands where they were clawing at his thighs and sides. “Touch yourself, my Empress, and let me hear you.”

Once, an order like that would have Yunchang gasping with uncertainty instead of pleasure. But the long years had reshaped him, and he found himself taking his cock into his hand immediately, ignoring the awkwardness of having to reach around his belly, and stroked hard and fast over the length even as Mengde drove inside him, again and again.

  
by the wonderful [kannibal](http://kannibal.tumblr.com/post/162859796924/and-if-you-lie-down-with-wolves-you-learn-to-howl).

When the waves crashed over him, he was caught so much by surprise that he didn’t need to stop stifling himself. He shouted his husband’s name, head dropped backwards, and he shouted again when Mengde surged upwards, snarling, and sank his teeth into Yunchang’s shoulder even as he slammed inside as deep as he could, and came.

Yunchang closed his eyes, slumping as much as he could forward even as Mengde continued to pulse inside him, his cock rippling against his clenching, oversensitive insides. 

If he wasn't already with child, Yunchang was sure that Mengde would have impregnated him again; without need for heat, without need for rut. The thought was nearly enough to make him laugh, for he knew the man he was ten years ago would have recoiled harshly from it, and shook terribly at the taste of such heavy desire and need. He turned his head, rubbing his cheek over his husband’s stubbled jaw.

“Mine,” Mengde murmured. His tongue was rough on the sensitive, aching skin of Yunchang’s shoulder, and his hands were splayed wide over the curve of his belly. “Mine. _Mine_.”

Blinking, Yunchang cocked his head. He nosed Mengde’s hair absentmindedly even as he stroked his hands down those shaking arms. His husband was still pressed tight against him, squashing the children against his spine, and the stickiness between his thighs was becoming rather uncomfortable, but he ignored those irritants as pieces fell into place.

 _Not tonight,_ Mengde had said, and then he changed his mind when he hadn’t before. His voice, not once shaped around Yunchang’s name, choosing instead _my Empress_ and _my jade_. Liu Bei in court, shouting his previous name. Yunchang in Qilan’s assigned quarters, _sao-zi_ on his lips.

Qilan’s words from the afternoon came back to him: _What would the Emperor have thought if you came to him with me by your side?_

His breath hitched, and he swallowed back a laugh. Sao-zi always saw so clearly.

“Yours,” he said. He could feel the moment Mengde stilled, and he tangled their hands together to shift them to the top of the swollen curve, right where the children were flailing and kicking at him. “I’m yours.” When those dark eyes turned to him, he smiled. “Did you not say that the children are the work we have both put in to make me feel safe? Do you think I would forget what you have done?”

Gently, so gently, he kissed Mengde’s temple, right where his hair had greyed. When he pulled back, Mengde’s eyes were fixed upon him again, and he turned his smile lopsided and wry.

“Will you do me a favour and just say what you need the next time?” he asked. “Instead of trying to twist the both of us into fulfilling it without having to speak it?” He squeezed Mengde’s hand, softening the blow without knowing if he had to.

After a moment, Mengde laughed. He brought both of their hands up to cup Yunchang’s cheeks, leaning in until their foreheads touched, and then their lips.

“Yunchang,” Mengde breathed. The scent of him: flames licking over cherry and cedar wood, sweet and light without the burn of metal on the tongue. His callused fingertips stroking down Yunchang’s face, over his neck, and resting over his thrumming pulse before curling, claiming.

“Yes,” Yunchang returned, voice just as quiet. “Your Yunchang.” A deep breath, and, here, the words he should have said years ago, after their Xiaojie’s birth: 

“Yours entirely by choice.”

The brightness of Mengde’s eyes burnt away the last of his old pride, and ignited to greater heights the new. The last vestiges of his cage of duty had collapsed, disintegrating into the openness of the sunshine as he was framed instead by the touch of Mengde’s hands.

Yunchang tilted his head and brushed his mouth over his husband’s.

“My Mengde,” he said. His hand sank into the long hair loosed for his sake, and only his sake. 

“Mine entirely by choice.”

_End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yunchang’s regnal name here is 猛慈 Meng Ci, which literally translates to “ferocity” (and is one tone away from the 'meng' of 'Mengde') and “compassion.” I think it’s appropriate for him, tbh. And yes, he’s the Empress, and their daughter refers to him as “mother.” It doesn’t make sense any other way. 
> 
> Lady Sun/Sun Shangxiang, Lady Mi and her brothers, and Cao Jie are all historical figures. Cao Jie is the daughter of Cao Cao who married Emperor Xian (i.e. the kid) and became his Empress by Cao Cao’s machinations. I chose her because her name, 曹节, has “celebration/festival” as the second character, which is pretty appropriate a name for Guan Yu and Cao Cao’s first child. I also like the irony that the child who would rather die a Han Empress instead of a Wei Duchess is now made into the next Emperor. Anyway, Mengde and Yunchang nicknamed her小节 Xiaojie, because the first character means ‘small’ and she is their smol.
> 
> In the future, her courtesy name will 文武 Wenwu, translating to ‘skilled in both words and swords.’ It’s not according to the usual style, actually – neither character relates to celebration – but her courtesy name was chosen by her future father-in-law, who gave her one of the characters of his wife’s name, with Xiaojie’s permission and also the wife’s. Who that father-in-law is, you’ll find out at the end of the companion fic, _for husband, for king_. Which will go up... soon. 8D

**Author's Note:**

> Feed the starving writer comments, please. 8D
> 
> Find me on tumblr @[evocating](http://evocating.tumblr.com), where I reblog a ton of stuff on Donnie and Jiang Wen and, occasionally, actually talk to people.


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